The PSI Saga
by B1tt3rb33f
Summary: The ancient prophecy foretold of two girls and two boys who would save the world from the wrath of Giygas... the time has come for the PSI Warrior to unite with her friends and bring a stop to his evils plans. Rated T for language and violence.
1. Chapter 1: That Was Unexpected

**Author's Note: Alright! Awesome! I'm introducing a new OC in this story. I didn't want to wait until after Beyond Legend to write this, and I also didn't want Vincent, my other OC to be overpowered and have PSI abilities on top of his powers. Also, I LOVE Earthbound! So, yeah. I was pretty eager to write this. So please read and review and remember to share the story with those you know and love.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own any characters from Earthbound, only my own character.**

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Eagleland, 20XX (Not 19XX) 3rd Person P.O.V.

Onett was a small and peaceful town in Eagleland, a land far, far away. Night had fallen over the small town like a cloak. The night sky rose up over the horizon as the sun fell drowsily over the opposite and the peaceful town quietly fell asleep. Little did anyone know that in space, a giant glowing meteorite was crashing down to Earth, its long, orange, flaming tail burning up in the atmosphere. On top of it, it was actually on a collision course with the small town of Onett. It could've been a coincidence, maybe it wasn't, who knew? But nevertheless, anyone would think that the meteorite was about to destroy the town of Onett...

But that's only what you would think.

Night's P.O.V.

"… Night? … Night …Night… I'm a friend who you have nevermet before … My name is..."

BOOOOOOOMMM...

"Help me!"

...BOOOOOMMMM!

"Gasp!" I sat upright in my bed. A big explosion just shook the house. I had just woken up from a strange dream. A girl was calling my name, calling desperately calling for help. Strange, isn't it?

Oh, by the way, I'm Night. I'm 14 years old and I live in a small town called Onett. I have red, straight (and rather messy) hair and dark blue eyes. When people see me, I appear to be just a regular 14 year old girl, just a typical teen. But what they don't know is that I'm not ordinary. I'm extraordinary.

You see, when I was young, I discovered a power within me, called PSI. I could use it to defend myself if I encountered a bully, or our town's local gang, the Sharks. I named it PSI Wave after my favorite thing that I learned to do when I was young, surfing. My family hasn't been to Summers in a while, since it's crazy expensive to have a vacation there. So recently, my dad has gotten a job at a company in Fourside. We rarely get to see him, but he's busy, ya know?

I sat in the dark for a second and then thought about what the explosion could've been. I went through the options-

"Ah, screw it. I'm gonna go check it out," I muttered, ignoring my next train of thought and sliding out of bed. I put on some shorts and a t-shirt (Yes. I sleep in my underwear. You got a problem with it?) and exited my room. I walked down the hallway and saw the light in my sister Tracy's room on. I assumed the explosion woke her up too, so I went to go check on her.

"Tracy? You up?" I knocked on her door, to which she responded, "Yeah, I think I heard an explosion. It could've been the Sharks." In her midsentence, I opened the door.

"Hey, I'm gonna go check out the explosion," I said. She rubbed her eyes and walked over to her bed. She reached under and pulled out her cracked bat.

"Here. In case you run into the Sharks, you can defend yourself with this." She handed me the cracked baseball bat. It was cracked because once, the Sharks down by the arcade were harassing Tracy, and luckily, I was nearby. I was carrying my baseball bat that I used to play baseball with the other kids in the neighborhood, even though I didn't like baseball at all (Peer pressure, I guess). I said to the Sharks, "If you wanna mess with my sister, you got another thing comin'!" The Sharks got pretty annoyed at this, so they advanced on me instead. I yelled at Tracy to run, and I basically got my head handed to me. They beat me up, even though I was a girl and it's freaking ILLEGAL to hit a girl. I did manage to take out like, three guys, though. But they left me on the ground, bruised with at least a bone broken, they spit on me and each took turns hitting me with the bat over and they ended up cracking my bat against a wall. Now before that, I was a regular girl, a nice, innocent, loving girl, who didn't give a rat's ass about the town's local gang or their existence. But if anyone, and I mean anyone, EVER messes with my family, let alone hurts them, I will make sure that all they see dancing before their pitiful eyes is bloody red stars. After that day, I trained my fighting and PSI skills so much that I would be able to seriously maim the Sharks if they ever messed with me.

I walked downstairs to the living room and saw the lights on. Mom had woken up and was roaming around the kitchen, worried.

"Ma? What's wrong?" I asked.

"Oh! You're up, Night. I was a bit concerned about the big explosion a few minutes ago. The explosion woke me up, and I thought the Sharks were at it again. I was going to go check out the scene, but I decided to stay indoors." she said very quickly.

"I doubt the sharks would do anything that bad. How could they get their hands on such explosives anyway? We'd all be dead by now if they had," I replied.

"Well, you never know. They do have a bad reputation. I never thought you of all people would be defending them, after what they did to you."

"I'm not defending them!" I protested. "I just think that it wasn't them for once. Look, I'm trying to stay on the positive side of things." I stood there for a second. "Oh yeah, that's right. I was going to go check out the scene."

"I do believe the explosion has woken the whole neighborhood up. Just be careful out there, okay sweetie?"

"I will, Ma. See you in a bit. Bye!" I called as I dashed out the door.

We lived near the base of the mountain of Onett. Once I exited my house, I looked around to for the explosion. I was expecting a large cloud of smoke, but I looked up on top of the mountain and saw something glowing with a bit of dust and some smoke. I started walking to ascend the mountain. Many people were up and they were all worried. There many policemen and some police cars parked on the trail, which made me a bit uncomfortable. I hiked up the mountain some more and even found a bread roll along the way. It was sitting inside a present, but come on, Cut me some slack; I was hungry.

I came across Lier X. Agerate hut on the mountain. He was standing outside his house, looking towards the top of the mountain. We were, I guess, close friends? Even though I hardly ever saw him because he spent most of his time mining for treasure? Okay, never mind.

"Hey Agerate," I called. He looked towards me.

"Oh, hey Night. Nice to see you."

"Are you alright? What happened?"

"Eh, I'm fine, but you'll never believe what happened. A giant meteorite came stashing down, like BOOM! I was fine because I always eat garlic and work out to make my body stronger, mostly so that the ladies notice."

"Yeah, uh, that's a bit too much information, dude." I said, annoyed. To this, he laughed.

"Hey, calm down Night! I was only kidding, sorta. Anyway, I guess some of the weaker citizens fainted. Hey, uh, did you check out my billboard? I made it myself! 'Cuz I'm a billboard guy, ya know? It's creative, isn't it?" I looked over at the board. It read, "Treasure Hunter! Lier X Agerate's house! Keep out!"

"Wow. So creative," I muttered sarcastically. "Hey, you said that the big thingy was a meteorite, right? Not an explosion?"

"Naw, it wasn't an explosion. You can go check it out for me. I can't leave here, 'cuz I gotta guard my hut."

"Sure. Whatever." I walked away. I continued down, or rather, up the path until I saw the red and blue flashing lights of some police cars. I turned the corner, and then I saw- oh god. Constantly pestering and bothering the cops was none other than my stupid neighbor, Pokey Minch. I really didn't want to see his ugly mug at this time of night, but he probably had the same idea that I did. Also, he has this thing where he calls me his "friend", but he's just an incredibly annoying, insensitive, spiteful dick to me. And it doesn't make a whole lot of sense why he calls me his "friend". What, does being a "friend" to him mean that he can treat me like I'm his bitch? No. I didn't think so. But whenever I give him a piece of my mind, he starts crying like a little baby and then I have to hear it from Mrs. Minch. What an asshole. I made a mistake of genuinely acting like a friend, but now I try my best to avoid him.

"Oh! Hey, Night!" said Pokey as he walked his fat ass over to me. Oh god. He got rather close to me, too. I stepped back quite a bit.

"Ugh, hi Pokey. What do you want?"

"Don't be rubberneckin', Night. You're getting in the cops'- oops, I mean the officer's way!"

"Oh, I'm getting in their way? **I'm** getting in their way? Have you ever taken a moment to reflect upon what you're doing, you hypocrite? Hm?! Did that ever cross your thick skull?!" I got up in his face, poking my finger at his fat nose. He slowly backed away. "You listen here, you little son of a-"

"Hey, no fighting. Alright? That'll cause us officers less stress. We're here to investigate the scene, and that's it. We don't want to have to deal with you kids this late at night. Why don't you both just go home? Yeah, that's a good idea. Go and get some shut-eye."

"Yessir," I muttered. After giving Pokey one more pissed glare, I descended the mountain and returned home. Ma was waiting for me at the front door.

"Welcome home, sweetie. What was going on?" she asked.

"A meteorite crashed down. Thank God we're all still alive." I yawned loudly. "Ah, I guess I'm pretty dang tired."

"Oh, yes. I understand. Why don't you scoot off to bed?"

"Okay."

xxxx

"… Night? … Night …Night… friend who... have never met… My name is..."

Knock-knock...

"Can you hear me... you? I am…Night… I am… Can you... me Help... don't know where I am…"

Knock-knock-knock...

"Night... help me!"

KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK!

"Gasp!" I sat upright in bed, for the second time. I looked at the clock. 3:42 A.M.

KNOCKITYKNOCKITYKNOCKITYKNOCKITYKNOCKITYKNOCKITYKNOCKITY... Someone was constantly knocking at the door furiously. As you can imagine, it was starting to really drive me nuts. Who the hell is knocking like that at this time of night? I thought. I put on a tank top and some leggings. I exited my room and walked down the hallway. The lights were already on, and Tracy was standing next to her room.

"Can you believe someone is knocking at this time of night? Jeez! What an annoying knock! I can't take it anymore!" she said.

"It better not be who I think it is," I muttered as I walked downstairs. Of course Ma was up in the living room, presumably woken up by the knocking.

"Ma, who is that?!" I asked.

"I don't know! Who could be knocking at this time of night? Can you answer the door?" she asked me.

"You were standing down here this whole time, and you didn't even bother to answer the door? Seriously, Ma?" I sighed. Slightly annoyed, I went to answer the even more annoying knocking at the door.

KNOCK KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCKITYKNOCKITYKNOCKITYKNOCKITYKNOCKITY...

"OKAY! I'M ANSWERING THE FREAKING DOOR!" I yelled. I opened the door only to see, take a wild guess. Take a wild FREAKING guess.

It was goddamn Pokey Minch.

"Hey! Night!"

"UUUUUGGGHHH, What the hell do you want Pokey? And what the hell are you thinking knocking like that at freaking 4 A.M. in the morning?! What, do you want to break down our door? What the hell is your freaking **deal**?!" I yelled furiously.

"I'm sorry!" No you're not, I thought. "Oh, good evening, ma'am. You're looking fine as usual, hehehe..." he flirted. "But anyway, Night! I took my brother Picky up to the place where the meteorite landed, and the police who were guarding the area suddenly left to take care of the Sharks, you know, the local ruffians."

"Oh, no, I don't know. Who, the people who beat the crap out of me two years ago? Yes, I know them! Quit patronizing me! Anyway, what stupid crap were you talking about?" I yelled irritably. Not like I care about what he has to say, I thought.

"Well anyway, the police left, and I noticed that Picky was gone. I-I blame it on the cops! I had nothing to do with it. Oh man, I know my dad's really gonna let me have it when I get back. But you can help me, can't you? Pleeeeeease? You're my bestest friend in the whole world, right?"

"... You must be high or drunk or both to think that I'm gonna help you. One, let me tell you, a friend respects another friend, you don't do that, also, a friend doesn't act like a total dick to another friend. You think I'm being a dick right now?" Yeah, his face said it all. "I'm telling you what a friend is! And you are not. What you think a friend is, is just a right to be a total asshole to another person whenever you want. I've put up with it, until now!"

"Look, I'm sorry for all those times, but even if you don't believe me, this is my brother we're talking about here! I'm worried about him!"

"No, you were-" I stopped myself and thought about it. I knew that Pokey was going to revert back to his old ways, but I didn't want to be a total dick either. Plus, I knew what it felt like to have a younger sibling in the face of trouble. I sighed. "Look, I don't know what you were doing when you lost Picky. I don't want to be a dick, but that doesn't give you any right to be one to me. So just this once, I'll go-"

"Okay! Thanks, Night! You're the best!" Pokey interrupted. I stifled a groan and a facepalm. "Let's blow this popsicle stand! Before we go, why don't you say 'goodbye' to your mom?" I walked over to Ma.

"I know he's not so reliable, but take the dog along with you," she said.

"Which dog?" I asked, noting Pokey.

"Night. You know what I mean. You shouldn't be so hard on him, you know. Take King along with you." I looked over at my dog, King.

"Here boy. Come on, King," I beckoned King to me. He got up slowly and walked over to me. He licked my hand and I pet his head. I looked back at Ma.

"Listen Night. No matter what happens, no matter what anyone says, you're a courageous, strong girl. Don't let anyone say otherwise. You're my own natural born fighter. You'll go far... Don't forget, 'go for it!' But I think you should change into regular clothes before you go. Also, you should get the bat from Tracy's room to protect yourself. It's dangerous out there." I nodded and started upstairs, but then-

"Pokey. Try anything funny; if you even flirt with my mom, I'll use my PSI on you. Got it?" I said menacingly. He nodded very quickly.

I pulled on a red shirt and some shorts. I put my hair into a ponytail and opened the door. I was about to leave, but then I looked over at my dresser and saw my red and blue baseball cap. Again, I don't like baseball, but I sort of shared a special bond with that hat. I loved that hat so much and it was my favorite hat. My dad had gotten it for me when I was a baby and I always wore it. I got the hat from my dresser and hugged it to my chest and then put it on. I bravely walked down the hallway and down the stairs to where Ma and Pokey were waiting. Pokey was waiting patiently on the couch. King walked over to me and sniffed me.

"Alright. Let's go Pokey." He walked over up to me and followed me out the door-

Ring-ring! Ring-ring!

"Night, will you answer the phone? It's probably another telemarketer," said Ma. I walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Oh, hello Night. It's your dad. I heard this saying, 'Work to exhaustion when you're young...' have you ever heard such a silly saying? Just remember, I'm behind you 100%."

"Thanks Dad," I said. "You know that kid, Pokey? Well I have to help him find his brother. I don't want to do it, but I basically have no say in it."

"Hahaha... You're a strong girl. People say that males are predominantly stronger, but I don't believe that one bit. I've seen that you're courageous and tough, so don't let anyone get you down. You can do it. How's your mother doing?"

"She's alright. She misses you. So do I."

"Well, I have a lot of work I need to do. I need to support you guys because you're my family. Oh, also, I deposited $30 into your bank account. You can withdraw it at the drugstore in town. I believe they have an ATM there. You can withdraw money with your ATM card," I took my ATM card out of my pocket. "and buy whatever things you need. I feel like a hero, well, the father of a hero. You can do it, honey. I believe in you. I love you, Night."

"I love you too, Dad," I said, trying to hold in my tears.

"Alright, alright, you can let it out. I understand that you haven't seen me in a while, but you can call me later. Bye."

Click! Beeeeeeeep...

I put down the receiver and went over to Pokey.

"Alright. Let's go," I said. But of course, Pokey wanted to have his fun first.

"Aw, are you gonna cry? Oh, crybaby's gonna cry! Wah! Wah! Don't worry crybaby. Your mommy's right there-"

 **SLAP! SMACK!** I slapped Pokey hard across the face twice. He was so surprised by this action that he stumbled backwards and fell onto the door. I grabbed my bat.

"DON'T MAKE ME BREAK THIS BAT OVER YOUR HEAD! LET'S GO!" I grabbed Pokey by the collar and shoved him out the door.

xxxx

"Oww, why did you have to slap me? It hurts..." complained Pokey as we hiked up the trail.

"Shut up. That's what you get for taunting me. I didn't have to do this, you know. I could've just closed the door on your face, but I decided to help you. And how do you thank me? By taunting me. You deserved that slap to the face, you ungrateful little- wait, do you hear that? Sounds like someone is snoring." I was right, the sound was coming from the top of the mountain where the meteorite was. Suddenly, King howled loudly and then ran home. I don't blame him. Sitting behind a tree was Pokey's brother, Picky. I tapped on him to wake him up.

"Snork! Ah! You woke me up! Pokey, I've been looking all over for you! You see, Night, Pokey got scared and ran away," I glared at Pokey, who turned red and avoided eye contact. "Well, I'm at least glad you're okay, Pokey. Let's go home. I'll bet Mom and Dad are worried sick about us. Jeez, sometimes I wonder who's the big brother around here..." Once Picky joined us, we started back down the trail, but then...

Bzzzzzzz...

"Hey, do you hear something sounds-"

"Yes! I hear it, Captain Obvious! What the heck is it any way? A bee?"

Suddenly, a light shone from the meteorite. A little bee flew out from the space rock and-get this-started talking to us.

"But a bee I am not..." said the little bug. "My name is Buzz Buzz, and I am from 10 years in the future, and in the future, all is devastation. Giygas, the universal cosmic destroyer has sent all to the horror of eternal darkness... However! You must listen to what I must say. Where I am from, there is a well-known legend that has been handed down from ancient times. It says, 'When the chosen girl has crossed the point, she will find the light. The passing of time will shatter the nightmare rock, and it will reveal the path of light.' You see, it is my opinion that you are this girl, Night. This I believe..." I found this to be quite intriguing, so I listened closer.

"Giygas's monstrous plan must have been set in motion somewhere on Earth, but if you start to confront the enemy immediately, you may have time to counter the evil intentions of Giygas. Three things are of utmost importance: wisdom, courage, and friendship. The legends from the ancient times tell of two girls and two boys who defeat Giygas. But I will tell you more later! Go now, and do not be anxious about the future. You have much work to do, Night. Did you listen to what I said?"

"Yessir, Buzz Buzz. 100%," I responded.

"Thank you for listening. You are as exceptional as I thought you would be, Night." And with that, he joined us.

"Night, it looks like you're in a lot of trouble this time. Two boys? I'm not one of them, am I? Because I'm not into that sort of thing at all. Jeez! My heart's pounding right out of my chest!" said Pokey.

"Shut it, Pokey. Don't worry, you're not one of them. I would make sure of that. Now let's go." We hiked down the mountain until we got to the bottom, and without any warning, a ray of light shone down from the sky and down came a robot!

"It's been a long time, Buzz Buzz. I see you've found the girl from the prophecy. You've done a lot to foil Master Giygas' plans, until now. Now you're nothing but a useless insect. I'll stomp you out hard!" And the robot got into a battle stance.

I was scared for a second; I didn't know what to do. Picky stood behind me and Pokey sat on the ground, crying crocodile tears. Suddenly, Buzz Buzz said, "That's a Starman Jr. Don't worry, you can attack him. I'll protect you, though. PSI Shield!" Buzz Buzz used a PSI that I hadn't seen or realized yet. Suddenly, my body, as well as Buzz Buzz, Picky and Pokey's bodies were protected by some kind of light shield.

"Fine! Have it your way! PSI Fire!" The Starman unleashed a powerful fire attack from his tentacle-like arms. I raised my bat up to block the attack, but the PSI Shield basically cancelled the attack. I took the opportunity to take a swing at the Starman Jr. I could've sworn I heard a cracking sound of some sort.

"That puny shield can't protect you forever!" yelled the Starman.

"Maybe not, but it can protect me long enough for me to do... THIS!" I popped up behind the Starman and swung at his head over and over. But then...

"One more hit should do it!" I yelled, with the Starman Jr. lying on the ground. "Hiyah!" I swung my bat extra hard, which seemed to finish off the Starman, but unfortunately in the process, my bat also broke. Well, what would you expect from a cracked bat?

"Whew! I was taking a big chance there. Well, you did a good job for your first fight, and against a Starman Jr. as well! He came from 10 years in the future to try and kill me, so we can't relax yet! From now on, you'll be fighting evil forces sent by Giygas, and humans with evil thoughts. Other animals will also try to kill you, so you will have to watch out. They will try to make trouble during your adventure." After that, we returned to Pokey's house.

"I'm so sorry that my boys troubled you so much. Now you boys are really going to get it!" said Mr. Minch. Pokey and Picky ran upstairs and Mr. Minch followed. I heard a lot of crying and whacking going on upstairs. That'll teach you a goddamn lesson, Pokey, I thought. Mr. Minch came back downstairs. "By the way, I would appreciate it if you left sometime soon."

"Oh, no, I understand. You guys are all tired, and you want to go to bed-" I started.

"That's not what I mean. I mean, we loaned your father a hundred thousand dollars or more, or less, depending on how you look at it, but because of it, we live in poverty now!"

"What do you expect me to do about it? I'm a kid!" I retorted.

"Aiieee! It's a bee! I'll kill it!" screamed Mrs. Minch.

"No wait! Stop!" But it was too late. Mrs. Minch swatted Buzz Buzz like it was nothing and he fell to the ground, to his death.

"No! Buzz Buzz! What the hell is your problem Mrs. Minch?! Buzz Buzz!" I ran over and caught Buzz Buzz.

"Uggghh... Night... I guess I'm weaker than I thought. Ugh... I must tell you something, before I pass on. To defeat Giygas, you must unite your power with the Earth's. The Earth will then channel your power and multiply it. There are eight places to visit. Make them your own. Each place is "Your Sanctuary". Giant Step in Onett, that is the closest one. Go there first. Augh! Everything is fading... here, before I go, I want to give you this. It's the Sound Stone. It can record the eight melodies of the Sanctuary locations. They are, Giant Step in Onett, Lilliput Steps in Happy Happy Village, Milky Well in Saturn Valley, Magnet Hill in Fourside, Pink Cloud in Dalaam, Rainy Circle in Winters, Lumine Hall in Tenda Village, and Fire Spring in the Lost Underworld. Augh! Ack! This is the end... G-goodbye, Night. I wish you the best of luck..." And with that, Buzz Buzz closed his eyes, never to open them again.

"Goodbye Buzz Buzz... I'm sorry..." I cried softly.

I stood up and death glared at Mrs. Minch. Once she noticed, I exited the house and slammed the door shut. The sun was rising over Onett and I yawned drowsily. I made my way to my house and entered.

"Oh! You're back, sweetie! Don't bother yourself with talking now. Are you hungry?" I nodded slowly. "Alright, I'll heat up your favorite curry and then you can scoot off to bed. Okay?" I forgot to mention: I. Love. Spicy food. It's something I can't live without. It's so good, in my opinion. Ma heated up some curry from the fridge and I ate it slowly. Once I was done, I trudged upstairs and walked down the hallway to my room.

"Wow, you look like you've had quite a night, sis," said Tracy. I simply nodded. I entered my room, stripped down to my underwear again and climbed into bed, finally.

xxxx

"... Night?... Night... Night...I'm a friend who you have never met before… My name is..."

"Can you hear me calling you? I am... Night! I... I am... Can you hear me calling you? Help! Come and help me! Um, I don't know where I am... I can hear water running in the distance... Night, please help me!"

"My name is Paula. Please help me!"


	2. Chapter 2: Onett's Local Gang

I sat upright it bed. It was sunny out and the birds were chirping away in the trees. But I was more focused on the dream I had woken up from. The dream from before, the girl calling my name, calling for help, her name was Paula! Paula needed my help somewhere. At first, I figured it was just a regular dream, but if it was reoccurring, if I could hear clearly what she was saying, then it wasn't a dream, more like telepathy. Paula probably used telepathy to communicate with me. Could that mean that she had the ability of PSI? Only time would tell.

I put on my red shirt black gym shorts, and my cap. I figured that I would need to change on my journey, so I packed a pair of track pants, some extra underwear, and a tank top into my bag. I walked downstairs and greeted Ma, telling her of the events from the previous night, the fight with the Starman, Pokey returning home, and the dream. I told her of the prophecy and she nodded her head.

"If you're going to travel, you can call Tracy periodically to store some items you don't need. Remember, I'm always rooting for you, honey. Come visit home sometimes, okay?" she said.

"Yeah, I will." I gave her a hug. "Love you, Ma." She waved goodbye as I walked out the door into the fresh morning air. I walked down the trail into town, carefully avoiding any snakes, dogs, or crows that could attack me. I had no protection, well, besides my Mr. Baseball Cap. I needed to go to the drugstore in town and get some equipment with the money that dad deposited. But while I was thinking, a crow flew up behind me and took my cap off with its beak.

"Hey! Give that back, thief!" The crow seemed to laugh in mockery. It flew down at me again with its feet sticking out. I took it as an opportunity to grab the bird, which I was able to successfully pull off. I swung the crow around by its feet until it grew extremely dizzy, and then I slammed it on the ground. I don't give a shit about what PETA thinks. If you take my cap, you're in for a world of pain. I slammed my fists down on the crow, over and over, until I was sure that it was dead. I pried my cap from its beak and put it back on my head.

At the drugstore, I took my ATM card from my pocket and inserted it into the ATM, or as I like to call it, "The **AT** omic **M** oney Muncher". Dad apparently deposited $35 into my account, bringing my money up to $275, including my previous savings. I withdrew all of it and bought a new baseball bat and a bracelet. I also went next door to buy a hamburger and a bag of fries. When a girl needs to eat, a girl needs to eat.

I slid the bracelet onto my arm and equipped the baseball bat. I went to the library to borrow a map of Eagleland for my journey then started walking downtown to the bakery and bought a bread roll and a skip sandwich for later. Afterwards, I went back to the drugstore to deposit any leftover money and walked over to Giant Step.

I knew where Giant Step was. High up in the mountain ranges of Onett, was a huge footprint, like, five times my size. That's pretty big, considering that I'm a pretty big girl. Not fat, but tall. Apparently, way back when, like early B.C.E, God sent a giant down to earth to resize a mountain that was too close to heaven. The giant had left a huge footprint on the mountain, and because a heavenly force created it, it gained tremendous power and humans began to call it Giant Step, one of the four Sanctuary locations. My dad took me there when I was little, and that's where I trained my PSI abilities. People had stopped going to Giant Step a few years ago, and I never knew why. But after hearing Buzz Buzz's story about this Giygas guy, I had a feeling that one of Giygas' minions were guarding Giant Step. I assumed that other goons were guarding the other locations as well.

Sure enough, when I got to the entrance to Giant Step (Basically an extremely run down shack with a hole out the back) the door was locked. Damn. I asked one of the touring guys there to let me in.

"Sorry. Not even we have the key to the shack. Giant Step is too dangerous right now. The mayor has the key and we can't bribe him enough to give us the key because he's scared that we'll go into Giant Step cave. Which is exactly what we'd do," said one of the guys there.

"Yeah, sorry. I know you want to visit Giant Step as well. Well, you can always look at it! Har har har! Naw, just kidding. You'd have to do something really courageous in order to get a hold of the key. Let's say, if you were able to get rid of the Sharks, then I suppose they could give you the key. Har har! Fat chance of that happening! You're just a girl! Har har har!"

"You wait and see, you misogynistic bastard," I grumbled under my breath as I bravely walked back to town. I walked up to the town hall where the mayor was and I asked to make a compromise.

"Wahahaha! You're asking me, I should give you the key to Giant Step if you stop the Sharks' bad behavior? Wahahaha! You're cracking me up right now!"

"Yeah, so I want to go to Giant Step. Is it an unfair compromise? Is getting rid of the Sharks too little to ask? Is it because I'm a girl, you misogynist?"

"Actually, no. I was convinced that you were pulling my leg when you said that you could defeat the Sharks. Heheheh. But no, that won't just earn you the key, that's sufficient enough to even leave town."

Yeah, about that. When they closed off Giant Step, they closed off the exit to town, which would take you to Twoson, the next town over. And along the way were other monsters and creatures.

"So is the compromise too much to ask?" I challenged.

"No. But let me ask you something. Are you strong enough? Bravery doesn't matter in this situation. You can be as bold as you want, and while that's all fine and good, are you skilled enough? Even the police have a hard time with the Sharks because of their leader, Franky."

"... Yes. I'm strong enough."

"Fine. It's a deal. You come back here with proof that you defeat the Sharks, and I'll give you the key to the shack." We shook on it.

"What proof do you want?"

"If you come out alive. Hahaha! Well, okay. If you don't come back before the day ends, I'll assume you're unworthy. Now get outta here."

I exited, and walked down to the arcade. The sign overhead said, "Game". Once I was at the arcade, though, it brought back many cruel memories of getting the shit beaten out of me. A truck stopped by the arcade, and two Sharks were harassing the truck driver.

"Why should I?" said the truck driver.

"Oh, aight. Yo, he be all like, 'why should I?'. Nigga, I don't care why, just gimme all yo goddamn money! Don't gimme some whack-ass reason why! Bitch, you must be trippin' to think that I'ma take that 'tough guy' bullshit from you! Just gimme yo damn money, mothafu-"

"Hey! Idiots! Remember me?" I said bravely.

"Yo, homie. It's that girl with all them powers and shit. Get 'er!"

"Heheh... You're that girl I beat up 3 years ago. Glad you came back so that I could kick your ass again," said the hula hoop guy. He ran up to me and threw a few punches at me. One hit my jaw, knocking me over. I got up anyway and swung my bat at his face. He blocked with his hula-hoop and swung his hula-hoop as a counter attack. I was quick enough to block with my bat again, but I struggled to push the hula-hoop back. He and I glared into each other's eyes with pure, utter hatred until I finally ducked and jabbed the end of the bat into his chest, knocking the wind out of him. I took the opportunity to swing my bat at his head, hard, which knocked him out and possibly gave him a concussion, but I can't say for sure. The guy harassing the man in the truck looked over at me angrily.

"Hey! I ain't gon' let you just do that! You're dead, bitch!" the guy spoke in heavy vernacular. He hooked me in the face, but I countered by slamming the bat against his shins.

"Auuugh!" He could hardly stand, so I used my special PSI attack on him.

"Been waiting to use this! PSI Wave α!" I unleashed a blast of psychokinetic energy out of my hands, hitting him hard in the chest and hopefully breaking some bones or dislocating organs. I marched up to the arcade, but not before jamming my bat into the guy's bleeding head. The guy in the truck called, "Thanks!" and he drove off.

In the arcade, other Sharks ran towards me in attempts to hurt me, but ultimately ended up maimed and bleeding out on the floor.

"Where's the leader of the Sharks?!" I yelled.

"Hey, girl. You lookin' for Franky? What for?"

"I want to kick his- I mean, uh, I need to talk to him. I want to join the gang."

"Wait a second, you're, you're that girl that we beat up three... no, two, oh, wait wait wait, no it was three, yeah, three years ago!" he stuttered. "Get lost! We don't need you here! We have enough gang members!"

"B-b-but!" I started fake crying. "I need somewhere to go! I'm done being the good girl! Plus, you know that I'm pretty strong! Please! You have to let me in!"

"No! I said no already! Don't make me force you to leave! You're not convincing me at all!"

"Well then, I'll just show you how strong I am!" I used PSI Wave α on him and he flew back onto the wall, knocking over some game cabinets.

"There. That strong enough for ya?"

I pushed the door to the back open, and standing there was the leader of the Sharks, Franky.

"Hey! Frankfurter!" He whipped around so quickly that if he weren't so buff, he would've gotten whiplash.

"What! Why you... how dare you call me Frankfurter!"

"Oh, I dare. You know why? It's 'cuz frankfurters are shaped like dicks. And you're a dick," I joked seriously. He unsheathed two knives and swung them around in his hands. He was pretty quick to attack, and he was even able to cut my flesh as I tried to dodge.

"You do know that it's illegal to harm a girl, right?" I said, swinging my bat at him. He swiftly dodged and cut me again.

"I don't care what goddamn gender you are! I'll kill you if you insult me!" He swung his blades around wildly, of which I was able to swiftly dodge. I countered by swinging my bat at his head, hard. It barely hit him, but I could hear an audible, "Ow!". I took the opportunity to repeat my attack, but he saw it coming and stabbed his knife towards my chest. I moved my body back, but he swung his knife down on my head. If I hadn't moved, then that knife would've killed me. I rolled off to the side, and used PSI Wave α on him. The force of the attack ripped his jacket, and made both knives fly out of his hands. I swear I heard a bone crack as the blast made him fly back and hit a wall.

I had defeated Franky, leader of the Sharks.

"Ugh... Frankystein Mark II! Obliterate her!" Franky pressed a button on a remote which switched on an odd looking robot. Instantly, the machine began spewing bursts of steam and making weird sounds. I used PSI Wave α on it, and started to beat the ever living crap out of it. I must've hit a vital wire, because something popped out of the side of it, presumably a screw. Many other pieces started to fly everywhere, and soon enough, the whole apparatus crumbled to the ground in a pathetic heap. The cuts and bruises were killing me, so I used PSI Healing α to heal my wounds.

"Is that all you got, Franky?" I yelled.

"Shh, don't yell so loud. My ears hurt. Sorry about that," he wheezed. "Something suddenly came over me, but I don't know what. Forgive me. I'm no match for the power of PSI."

"What? You give up?"

"I surrender. I didn't mean to try to kill you."

"... Sure you didn't." I exited back through the arcade and made my way back to the town hall.

"W-what? You defeated the Sharks?! Alone? I don't believe it! That's amazing! I immediately take back whatever I said about you. You're a real hero!" commended the mayor.

"Yeah, can I have the key to the shack now?"

"Oh! My mistake. Here, take this. Onett is in your debt."

"Whatever, misogynist," I mumbled under my breath as I exited the town hall. I walked back up north to the entrance to Giant Step. The tourist douchebags had the same reaction as the mayor. I ignored them and opened up the door to the shack, although the key snapped when I turned it, so it couldn't be reused. I marched inside and into Giant Step.


	3. Chapter 3: Leaving Onett

Now, I remembered that in order to visit Giant Step's sanctuary you would have to go through a cave system, but I don't remember being ambushed by ants, rats, and slugs. Before, I would occasionally see some animals sneaking about, but nobody I knew was ever attacked by them. In fact, it's kind of ironic, since people would be the ones to bother them, not that anyone would. (Except for Pokey. He was always a dick.) What did I ever do to them? Nothing, but that's not the reason. Giygas knew that I was coming for him.

Basically, this is how Giant Step went: walk a few steps, and a horde of rats and other bugs would come out of nowhere and start biting, kicking, yes that right. Kicking. How they were able to pull that off with their small little legs, don't ask me. Anyway, they would come out of nowhere and gang up on me, and I would swing my bat wildly at them. Well, I did for the first few times, but I made the mistake of swinging the bat at my head, and you can probably assume that it didn't end well for me. After knocking myself out, I woke up to find what I least expected: my pockets turned inside out, and my wallet lying on the ground, opened. Hey, ask the rats and bugs, 'cuz I have no idea how they did it. I thought to myself, Thank God I deposited my money at the drugstore. I was pretty freakin' mad, so I picked up my wallet and stormed off towards the guardian. My bat instantly flung away any bugs that tried to attack me. If they managed to latch onto my face, I used PSI Wave α to get them off, because I couldn't be hurt by my own PSI, luckily.

I was getting pretty hungry, so I dug around in my bag for some-

Those asshole pieces of shit stole my hamburgers, chewed on my bread rolls, and couldn't have cared less that I was knocked out for, I don't know, a couple of hours? I was near the sanctuary, and I felt an immense source of power coming from the top of the cave. Inside my head I debated with myself, "Should I go back and get more burgers? Because I fell like I might pass out from hunger, or should I just get the melody and then get something to eat?" I literally just stopped and thought about it before I had to climb a rope up to the sanctuary. Not wanting to backtrack and go through the whole damn cave again, I decided to just bite the bullet and go take care of business first.

At the top of the cave, there was a shining light, a portal, blocking the entrance to the sanctuary. I got into a battle stance and prepared to face whatever was going to come out of the portal. A voice spoke:

"You finally got here," said a strange voice. Out of the portal came a figure, a giant ant. "This is your first Sanctuary Location, but it's mine now. Take it from me if you dare."

"Oh, I dare," I snarled.

"You dare defy me?" The ant raised his voice.

"Oh, I DARE!" I shouted. The ant got into a stance, much like me.

"My name is the Titanic Ant. Come at me, 'chosen one'." The ant started by rushing at me with his mouth open to use a biting attack, but I dodged and swung my bat at his head. He was quick to dodge as well, and he chomped down on my arm. I yelped in pain and tried to whack my bat at him. He grabbed it and flung it onto the floor. He tried to use PSI Shield α to protect himself, but I cancelled it out by attacking with PSI Wave α when he was caught off guard. I latched onto his back where he couldn't bite me, in which he tried swinging his arms at me but ended up hitting nothing. I returned the favor by thrashing the bat at his head over and over until he fainted on the ground, where I whacked my bat at his head and beating up his body until he was just a body. It faded away, and so did the portal and the entrance to the sanctuary was open once more.

Outside, I was high up, on top of the mountain. I saw on the ground, exactly what I was looking for: the Giant Step. It was smaller than I remembered it to be, but that's just because I grew. I held out my sound stone and a melody flowed out from the footstep. Nine notes in total, all the beginning of the melody that I needed to defeat Giygas. Suddenly, as the melody ended, my wounds faded away and I caught a glimpse, quick, but I was still able to see it: a small, white, cute puppy. Was it King, my dog who sat lazily at home 24/7? I didn't know for sure, because it passed by so quickly.

After backtracking through the cave system of Giant Step, I came to where I once entered and exited through the shack only to see, a police car waiting. Great, just what I needed.

"Hey! You! You just went into Giant Step, correct?"

"Yeah, what of it?" I retorted freshly.

"I don't like your tone, missy. You watch yourself. Do you know how to read? Do you know what that sign says?" He pointed to a sign that said, "GIANT STEP. DO NOT ENTER!" next to the shack.

"It says, 'Do not enter'! What's so hard about that? Come down to the police station later."

"Oh so, I take out the Sharks in town like trash, then I defeat the guardian of Giant Step, the historical landmark in our own town, and you know, defeating the guardian isn't easy for even me, and this is how you thank me? By placing me under arrest? Ow! Hey!" I shouldn't have argued, because that guy had me bent over on the police car, hands behind my back, and cuffed. The police shoved me inside the car, got in the driver's seat and drove furiously away in a cloud of dust.

"This is police brutality! You can't do this! I saved Onett-"

"Shut your mouth, little girl. You had no permission to enter Giant Step, alone or even with supervision."

"Yeah, well, I got the okay from the town mayor! How about that?"

"He did what?! How the hell did you bribe him to give you the key?"

"I didn't bribe him, I made a compromise! I defeated the Sharks, and he gave me the key to the shack!"

"Quit joking! I know that you can't defeat the Sharks! Us police even have trouble with them!"

"I'll prove it to you! Why don't we go to the Town hall right now?"

"...Fine. But if he says that he didn't, then you're coming down to the station with me." The car slowed and he pulled up to the town hall. "Come on! Outta the car!" He pulled me by the cuffs and dragged me forcefully out onto the curb and into the building. We ascended the stairs to the mayor's office and the police guy forced the mayor to tell him if he gave me the key or not, also telling me to shut up and not say a word.

"Wahahaha! Me, give her the key? Wahahaha! That's hilarious, Captain Strong! I wouldn't give anyone the key..." He looked over at my enraged face and smirked. "...Even if they defeated the Sharks."

"YOU LYING BASTARD! YOU KNOW THAT'S NOT TRUE!" I screamed.

"Then where's the key?"

"It broke! It broke when I twisted it in the door!"

"Yeah, likely story, kid," said Strong. "If you don't have any evidence, then you're guilty. Simple as that. Let's go, to the station! Now!" I gritted my teeth until they slid under pressure, and I clenched my fists in the handcuffs. Strong pushed me out the door and into the car.

"If you say a single word, I'll throw you in jail for life."

"Piss ass."

"Oh, that's it!" The car suddenly came to a screeching halt, and Strong grabbed me and shoved me out onto the ground.

"You think you have any right to stand up to me?! Let's go! To the station! Now!" he yelled as we marched the rest of the way to the police station.

We entered the police station and Strong dragged me to the cells, where he literally threw me inside and locked the door.

"This'll teach you to stand up to a police officer!" Then he closed the slider on the window.

xxxx

"Hello? ...Night? Can you hear me? ..."

"Huh?"

"You can hear me? Night? My name is Paula... I'm a friend you have never met before."

"What? What does it mean? How can you...?"

"You can hear me! I'm Paula. I'm in a dark place, I don't know where I am..."

"I happen to be in a dark place too. I got thrown in jail."

"I seem to be in a jail cell too... Night, I need you to come save me... you're a part of a prophecy..."

"I know. How do you know about the prophecy?"

"Night, I am the other girl from the prophecy."

Knock knock knock!

"Wait, what?"

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

"Night..."

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

"Wake up! Come on! Rise and shine!"

I opened my eyes, only to find that I was in the same jail cell. Light shined in through the bars on the door and I sat up on the bed that was provided.

"GET UP!" Strong was at the door. Great. The last person I wanted to see. I rubbed my eyes and stretched my limbs. I got up and walked towards the door, which opened as soon as I reached it.

"Night, correct? It appears that there's been a miscommunication. The mayor was caught lying and told the truth about you, and he said what you said was true. Every single member of the Sharks was found in the hospital. I assumed that it was you, but..." He stepped closer to me. "I can't just take anyone's word for it. I need proof. Follow me." He allowed me to step out of the cell, but there were other police officers blocking my exit. Captain Strong led me into a back room where, standing inside the room were five other cops waiting there for me.

"Prove that you're strong. Prove this by defeating five of my best men, and then we'll decide what happens afterwards. Larry!" He shouted to the first guy.

"Heh. You stopped the Sharks, eh? Thanks for doing our job for us- Oof!" I grabbed my bat and slammed him in the chest. He fell back, writhing in pain, but he got back up and swung his nightstick at me. He hit me in the side first, and then aimed a blow for my head, but I blocked with my bat and countered with my PSI Wave α, flinging him back onto the wall. Strong went over to him and moved him out of the room.

"Sean!" A taller cop casually walked over to me, but I never gave him a chance to attack me as I ducked under his swing and kicked his back and then started swinging madly at his head. He fainted, and then Strong slid him out of the room.

The next two went similar; one of them was really fast and struck a blow at my head, actually making me see stars. I quickly defeated them though, and then there was one more guy.

"Ergh... um, duty calls!" And he fled the room, obviously not wanting a fight.

"Fine. He won't fight? Then I'll do it myself. Get ready for my 'Super Ultra Mambo Tango Foxtrot Martial Arts'!" Strong moved quickly, dodging most of my attacks, and striking some blows. I was getting bruised and weak, but I pressed on, finally ending it with PSI Wave α, which possibly broke one of his bones. He fell to the ground like a potato sack, and then he stood up slowly, carefully.

"You are tough. I was completely wrong to think otherwise. So you have this 'prophecy' you need to fulfill, correct? Then, I can arrange things so that you can go on to Twoson, the next town over." He pulled out a phone and called the other police officers that were guarding the exit to Onett.

"Hello? Yes, it's me, Strong. I need you to clear the exit to Onett. Yes, I know what I said! Just do it anyway! Let Night pass. The girl with the ponytail and the red cap." He hung up. "Night... don't let anything or anyone stop you. Go fulfill the prophecy. I believe in you." He limped slowly away, out the door. I couldn't have been happier. I suppressed a grin and exited the police building.

I ventured down to the path to Onett and I saw some police officers standing there, waiting for me.

"You're Night, correct? Strong told us to let you pass... I have no idea why, he's our boss, so we don't question him." I didn't say anything; I just nodded and walked down the pathway to Twoson.

Twoson was definitely bigger than Onett. The pathway to the Twoson was pretty long, but it didn't take all day. I fought some enemies on the way, some mushrooms with legs tried to attack me, but nothing too big. In Twoson, there was everything that Onett had, a hospital, a bakery, a burger joint, and even a department store, which I guess was the town's drugstore. There was a park, a bicycle shop, a bus terminal, and a building with the name Polestar on it. I wondered what that was all about. I had to fight this weird guy in the park called Everdred, and what he told me was shocking.

"You're pretty strong, but that's not why I brought you here," He said when we were in his house. He grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator, popped the cap off, and took a swig. "I wanted to tell you something you may be concerned about. So recently everyone's been worried about the kidnapping of that Polestar girl. Uh, what was her name?"

"Oh, that's the house I saw earlier. It said Polestar on it," I mentioned.

"Okay, but what was her name? Oh yeah! It was Paula! Paula Polestar!" I froze.

"Wait. You just said Paula?"

"Yeah. You know her?"

"She's been in my dreams, trying to communicate with me."

"I ain't surprised. She's got psychic powers. Why would she communicate with you? Are you psychic?"

"Yeah, I have PSI ability."

"Oh, yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah! That's the thingy that Paula used! You better find out more about this incident, 'cuz if you also have the PSI thingy, then you must have a connection with her."

"Okay. I will." I set off towards the house with "Polestar" on it.

Who I assumed was Paula's mother and father, they told me of how the other night, Paula was taken from her home to a town on the other side of Peaceful Rest Valley called Happy Happy Village, for unknown reasons. I looked on my map at where Happy Happy Village was, which was east of Twoson. I set off for Peaceful Rest Valley.

I had to turn back. Just great. There was an iron pencil statue blocking the way in the valley, halting my progress. I turned back, confused and talked to Mr. and Mrs. Polestar about the situation. They assumed that the kidnapper had put the iron statue there to block the way and stop anyone from saving Paula. They suggested that I speak to Apple Kid, who was south of town.

At Apple Kid's house, I met Apple Kid, a fat boy with a mouse partner, but he was apparently an inventor. He asked me to invest $200 in him so he could make me some cool shit, so I said, why the hell not? His mouse buddy gave me a "receiver phone" on the way out, which was a phone that I could only receive calls with. That sucks.

I decided that I was going to have to gear up for the journey, so I stopped by the Twoson Department Store and bought a tee ball bat with some money that Dad had deposited for me, and then I visited Burglin Park to get some new equipment. I sold my old bracelet and bought a copper bracelet instead. I also picked up a yo yo as an extra weapon, a long range weapon instead of just my regular short-range bat. I equipped everything and exited east to Peaceful Rest Valley.


	4. Chapter 4: The Polar Opposite of Happy

I don't think Peaceful Rest Valley is a very appropriate name for the valley between Twoson and Happy Happy Village because much like Giant Step, this path was, if you guessed infested with walking sprouts, mini U.F.O's, spinning robots most likely from Giygas's army, and huge oak trees with freakin' eyes that spontaneously combust once you destroy them, then pat yourself on the freakin' back. If that's not what you guessed, then here's the events of Peaceful Rest Valley that'll make you think not so highly of the name.

First, I ventured back through the little cave system, getting ambushed relentlessly by walking sprouts and mushrooms, which got even worse as I ventured outside. Here's where those goddamn U.F.O.'s, spinning robots, and combustable trees come into play. The pathway followed a small, winding river, but had some hills as well. I mean, it is a valley, so it would make sense. But the enemies were overwhelming in numbers, so much that I couldn't keep up with them, in which they all ambushed me and knocked me unconscious, just before I reached the other side.

When I came to, guess what? My (fortunately) already empty wallet was sprawled out on the ground, my backpack open, and all the food gone.

Son of a bitch.

"So this is going to be a recurring theme now? Every time Giygas' dirty goons knock me out, they try to rob me?" I stood up and scratched my head. "What do they even need money for? It's not like currency does any good away from civilization." I wasn't even angry anymore, as the assholes only took what was there, which was not a lot and I had no money on me. Smart girl, I thought. You smart girl, thinking ahead. Way to freakin' go.

I still had a ways to go before I entered the village. I came across a steep cliff to when I looked down, I saw a little house at the bottom. There was no safe way to get down, but I saw a little entrance to a cave, so I assumed that I could access it from Happy Happy Village. Speaking of...

The moment I set foot onto the ground that was Happy Happy Village, a creepy, ominous feeling swept over me, like I had just stepped into our old house's basement. When we used to live in Threed, (Do you think I lived in Onett all my life?) we lived by almost the graveyard area. Threed was a pretty spooky town in general because of the abandoned circus equipment south of the town and some other rumors and shit, so the fact that we lived near the graveyard made our house even spookier. Dad always used to send me down into the basement to get stuff because he used to be a metal worker, and there was like, what, maybe three lights down there? I don't really remember too well, I do remember that the light near the boiler room didn't work, but thats it. But he used to send me down, and I was usually down there by myself and I always heard sounds that always made my blood go cold. What did you expect? I was a little girl scared of the dark! All kids are scared of the dark, so cut me some slack! Then one day I went down and didn't turn on the lights, and I heard a sound coming from the corner, typical. I didn't see anything, but I rubbed my eyes, and I could see instantly. Dad says he named me because my name reminded him of his dates with Ma under the stars, and I don't know if this was a coincidence or not, but that was the day that I got night vision. It was weird. I heard something coming towards me, but then I opened my eyes, and it was like pure daylight was shining from God knows where. I have a theory that I was blessed by a spirit on that day, but I could never say for sure.

But anyway, when I set foot into Happy Happy Village, it felt as if I was back in my old basement. In other words, not a pleasant feeling.

For one, the whole town was painted blue, or at least it seemed like it. The village had a sort of blueish hue over it, and everyone seemed in a trance, repeating the words, "Blue, blue" over and over. I talked to some people, and they always felt the need to interject "Blue, blue" in the beginning of their conversation. They all seemed rather depressed, like they were being forced against their own will to like this new color.

"Happy Happy Village? Why not call it Depression Depression Village instead? Everyone here is either dazed or depressed. Or maybe they're high instead, because that seems like a new theme these days. Maybe I should try smoking weed. I wonder what it looks like while you're doing it. Is it true that you can actually see colors- ah. What the hell am I doing just standing here?" I got a little lost in thought for a second thinking out loud about what smoking pot would be like. I didn't really plan on smoking, but I was almost tempted to find a pot store.

Ahem. Anyway.

I looked around the town for a bit and found a drugstore that looked like just a normal building, with no fancy logo on it or anything. At the drugstore, I traded my tee ball bat for a sandlot bat, and bought a ribbon just to see how it would look on me. I checked myself out in the mirror in the bathroom, but decided instantly that it didn't suit me. Instead of selling it, I decided to hold onto it just in case. Outside the the drugstore was a little picnic blanket with some bananas and a basket of fresh eggs, unattended, and a sign that said, "We trust you. Feel free to shop here." and a little jar for money. I like bananas, a little, okay, maybe a little more than just a little. Okay, let's just say that I really like bananas. I like bananas, okay? I'm not really dishonest, sorta, and seeing as how the sign said, "We trust you," made me not want to just steal. I took a few bananas and dropped $6 in the jar, just to be safe. Why no one was attending the stand is beyond me. Maybe they decided to join the "Blue, blue" trend. There was also an inn, but they charged a bit too much. There was a cave entrance to the north of town to which I concluded must've lead to that house at the bottom of the cliff I saw earlier. There was also a large weird shaped building in the center of town (probably should've mentioned that one first), but I decided to come back to that one and go explore the cave first.

There wasn't much to the cave, it was more like a tunnel, really. On the other side was, confirmed, the house I saw earlier. I entered the house, only to find it to be dark in there. Using my night vision (About that, I can't decide if I want my night vision to be off or on, because it's always "on") I noticed a cell, sort of like a jail cell, taking up half the room. Yeah, this was one of those odd one room houses with no windows or anything. Just a table with a stool, and a jail cell with some one in it. A girl? Yeah, I saw a girl sittinng in the corner alone. Jeez, what'd she have to do to get locked up? Protest against the color blue?

"Hey, are you alright?" I spoke quietly. The girl was wearing a sort of pink dress and a red ribbon in her golden blonde hair. She turned around, and I got a look at her young, bright, shining face.

"Who's there? What more do you want from...! It's you! Night!" she exclaimed.

"What? You mean, you're Paula?" I asked.

"Yes. I knew you would come and save me!"

"You told me to come rescue you, and word around Twoson spread that you'd been kidnapped and brought here."

"They were going to use me as a human sacrifice because of my PSI ability. I knew you also had PSI abilities, and that's why I tried to contact you via telepathy, and you heard me!"

I nodded. "Yeah. I was in my own jail cell at that time. Have you heard of the Santuary locations?"

"Yes. There's one here in Happy Happy Village."

"I had to record the melody from Giant Step in Onett, where I live. Ironically, I was caught and punished for doing a good thing, which was defeating the monster that lurked around there. Apparently, they blocked off the area so that no one could go in, but they basically gave up on trying to get rid of the Titantic Ant. So I still don't understand how they can just go back to the problem like it was fresh in their mind, but no! It was crap at the bottom of the barrel!"

"Well, I will say, you're pretty impressive for making it this far by yourself. But there are challenges yet to come, and they're not going to get any easier, believe me. I am the other girl from the prophecy they speak of, and I am to aid you on your journey to save the world from the evil clutches of Giygas and his army. There are also two boys who are to join us, who we'll meet up with later on. But while we are in the present, we will need to do something about this village. I can't bust out of here on my own, even with PSI ability. I'm simply not strong enough. However, Mr. Carpainter, the one who locked me up, has the key hidden somewhere. I've never really known him that much, I've only met him a few times, but I've never seen him as a bad guy. I bet he's not, though. If you ask him nicely for the key, maybe he'll give it to you."

"Eh, I doubt it. But kidnapping her and locking you up personally? Sounds like he wants to use you for other reasons than just a human sacrifice."

"I don't want to think of anyone as a bad person. I don't believe that Mr. Carpainter is a bad person either, even for locking me up. Well, if you're going to confront Mr. Carpainter, you should take this Franklin badge." She handed me a little badge with a lightning bolt shape on it, to which I pinned onto my shirt. "I heard that Mr. Carpainter can control lightning. Be careful!"

I went back into town, encountering some of the Happy Happyists along the way. They were wearing all blue, of course, and they brandished paint brushes and paint cans the color, what do you think? I thought that I was about to join the blue trend too, but I held back and focused on saving the world instead.

Not leaving me much choice, I entered the weird, triangular shaped building in the middle of the town.

I wish I could unsee what was inside, because I ended up seeing everything as blue for the next few hours. Jeez, was this guy completely sad, or was he completely mad? I couldn't tell, so I just went with both.

What I saw were all, or most of the townsfolk had turned to the "blue side" and were wearing all the same attire, blue hood, blue suit, blue ties, all brandishing a blue paintbrush, and a blue paint can, swaying back and forth, almost as if in a trance, murmuring, "Blue, blue." They all stood close together, and I couldn't move past most of them. However, some of them were nice enough to open up a path for me.

"Blue, blue. Blue, blue. Blue, blue. Blue, blue." I tapped his shoulder. "Blue- Blue! Oh, I'm sorry. Am I in your way? I'll move for you. If you want to be one of us, give up what you're doing and meet the great Mr. Carpainter as soon as possible." And continuing to murmur, "Blue, blue," he kindly moved out of the way for me, revealing a present with a croissant inside it. Seeing as everyone else was in a trance and not going anywhere anytime soon, I took the croissant for later. It was almost scary to see these many people swaying back and forth, murmuring the ever popular, "Blue, blue," as if nothing else in the world mattered. I felt anxious, as if they were all about to jump me at once, but I just pressed on nonetheless. The next guy wasn't as polite as the previous guy, but he must've thought that I had given in to the "Blue, blue," trend.

"Blue, blue... Kid, don't bother us. We're in the middle of a prayer," he said.

"I just need to pass, please," I asked politely.

"Okay, I'll move out of your way. Go quickly!" I continued. The next guy was pretty pissed that I disrupted him.

"Blue, blue. Don't disrupt our meeting! I'll stomp on you!" He got into a battle stance, and swung his paintbrush at me, slathering paint on my face. I took out my yo-yo and swung it around like a pair of nunchucks and hit him in the face. No one noticed us fighting, they were all lost in their trance. I took out my bat and smashed it on his face until blood poured out from his nostrils. His movements were weak, and I moved him out of the way. However, no one else seemed to get that I wanted to progress, so I went looking for another opening.

"Blue, blue... Huh? You say I'm only capable of walking in place? That's not true, see?" He moved politely out of the way, but leaving me there confused.

"But I didn't say anything, sir." There was no response after that, so I just shrugged and moved on to the next guy.

"Green, green- oops, that's not it. Heheh, I'm still new at this whole thing. I say green because I used to love nature. Now I'm forced to love blue." He scratched his head abashedly and moved out of the way. I moved on and found a present with a Skip Sandwich in it. I heard about these things, how they give you an extra spring in your step when you eat it, or you can walk faster than normal. But why not just run? I took it anyway.

"Blew, blew... Oh, sorry. I'm trying to learn how to whistle. I heard that whistling makes one smile, so I'll practice somewhere else. Sorry if I was in your way, sweetie," she said, and she moved out of the way, whistling, and failing. The guy who was behind her was looking for trouble.

"Blue, blue. You strange, unmasked fellow! Don't go to heaven!" He started to get into a battle stance, but I swung my bat at his head, knocking him unconscious.

"Yeah, who's not going to heaven now?" I mocked as I stepped over his body. There wasn't anyone else who wanted to fight, but there was a bunch of guys standing in a circle, and some guys walking around them. I just ignored them and moved on to a door that was waiting for me at the end of the room. In the next room, a guy in a blue suit and tie and fedora, but without a mask, sat at a desk, looking scared shitless.

"AIIIIEEE!" he suddenly screamed. I jumped in surprise.

"What's wrong with you? Why are you screaming?" I looked at him weird.

"I-I'm s-s-screaming b-because I d-didn't know what else t-to do!" I figured Mr. Carpainter had done something to him too, so I ascended the stairs bravely, only to see Carpainter staring at this weird golden, glowing statue. I walked up to him carefully. Suddenly, he turned around without warning, scaring me a bit.

"Thanks for coming. I've been waiting for you. I need your assistance to help make the world blue and change it to a happy and peaceful society."

"Blue is the color of sadness and depression, idiot. If the world were just blue, it'd be boring, and there wouldn't be a peaceful society. There'd be a society run by your sad self and your color blue."

"But the world will be peaceful!"

"And how do you plan to bring peace to the world? By kidnapping helpless little girls and making them either a 'human sacrifice', as you call it, or whatever you were thinking in your dirty ass, perverted mind, you sick ass? Do you really think I'm gonna join you? I'd rather die before I join your obsolete, pathetic little cult."

"Your existence is a problem for me and my religion. Defy me, and I'll end your pitiful life!" He got into a battle stance and brandished his paintbrush. He lifted his arms and instantly, a bolt of lightning crashed down upon me. I shielded my eyes, but the franklin badge that Paula gave me absorbed the lightning and rebounded it back at Carpainter, who fell down and opened his eyes, surprised.

"How..? It can't be possible that you were not only able to survive my attack, but rebound it as well! Well no matter, prepare yourself!" He started by swinging his paintbrush around madly, splattering blue paint, and making me one with the room. How trendy. Then, the paintbrush struck me on the cheek, painting my face a deep shade of blue. I ran up to him and swung my bat at his gut, knocking the air out of him. In retaliation, he brought the butt of the brush down onto my head, giving me a headache. He was about to strike me again, but I moved around him, dodging the attack and countering by swinging my yo-yo around like a lasso, and hitting his back, and his head. Enraged, he incompetently lifted his arms to use his "Crash Boom Bang" attack, or basically his lightning attack which he had used once before, and also gaining the same results; the Franklin badge absorbed the attack, and rebounded it back at Carpainter. He tried to dodge it, but humans can't move faster than light, y'know.

"Take this!" He grabbed a nearby paint can and sloshed it in my direction, which I was able to avoid mostly, but I became aware that I had swallowed some toxic paint in which the side effects came instantly; I felt sluggish and slow, and my gut hurt. To be safe, I used PSI Healing α to heal any poison that could potentially kill me. However, Carpainter was still quicker, as he struck me in the face with his paintbrush again, knocking me down. He was about to strike me again, but while lying on the ground, I used PSI Wave α to prevent him from hitting again. The force of the attack knocked him back into the golden glowing statue. Suddenly, as if waking from a daze, he sat up with a blank look on his face. He looked down at his paintbrush, and back at the wall with the same blank look.

"Ah, are you alright? Have I done you any harm?" He said innocently. "Forgive me if I have done so."

"Don't play dumb and innocent otherwise I'll smash your head in with my bat!" I yelled.

"I must've done you harm, seeing as how you act so hostile towards me. Forgive me for any harm I may have caused. I am sorry. You see, this Mani Mani Statue was controlling me. It was given to me by some guy. I don't remember his name too well, something like Agerate?" I didn't really hear what he said next because I was thinking about what he just said.

Lier X. Agerate.

I knew Agerate always found weird shit in his little dugout, but I never thought his findings would be even this weird. The statue must've possessed him to give Carpainter the statue and/or controlled him too. I guessed "and". I was lost in thought, thinking about how I would confront Agerate about the statue later, but then I snapped back to the present when I heard, "Night!"

"Huh? Who? Wha...? Oh. Sorry."

"I was in the middle of saying that the Mani Mani Statue, which oddly disappeared, and I don't know where it went, but it possessed me to do works of evil. When I received the statue, I went into a weird place where the statue brainwashed me to do evil. I didn't mean to kidnap dear Paula. Hell, I didn't even start the religious cult. I like the color blue, but not to that extent."

"Yeah, well now I'm gonna start seeing blue for the next few hours, thanks to your so-called 'possession'. I don't care if you didn't know what you were doing either."

"Well, I do sincerely apologize for anything that I've done. Even if you don't believe me, everything I have said was truth. Oh, also, before you leave, take this." He tossed me the key to the cell. "I know it doesn't mean much coming from me, but I believe in you."

"Yeah. Whatever." With that, I turned around and exited the room. Just like that, everyone downstairs, save a couple of guys cleaning up the area, was gone, as if they never existed at all.

I stepped outside into the fresh air, to see that everything was back to normal, not a drop of blue anywhere. I felt happy that I had been able to stop another evil force, but my happiness didn't last too long, because the moment I stepped out of the building, guess who I saw?

Pokey Minch.

Why, god? Why?

"Oh man, I feel like I just woke up from a horrible nightmare..."

"Pokey...! What are you doing here?"

"I don't know! I felt like I was in a sort of daze or something."

"Yeah, sure. Listen, I don't need any more stress in my life, so why don't you just make like a tree and get out of my goddamn sight? Quit following me! I get that you love being a dick, so why don't you go be a dick to someone else?"

"I woke up from a dream, a terrible nightmare, and decided that I don't wanna be mean anymore! Please, just give me one more chance, and I promise I'll be good! Pleeeeeeeeasssse?"

I didn't believe him obviously, but I knew that he would keep on bugging me if I kept saying no or ignoring him. They usually say that if you want someone to stop bothering you, you just ignore them. Not with Pokey, he's like a disease; unless you just do something about it, it'll keep killing you.

"Ugh, fine. Just quit bothering me and go back to Onett or something."

He started to walk away very slowly, but then he turned around to face me and said, "Haha! You thought I was serious, I tricked you! Later loser!" And he ran away cackling like an imbecile.

"What an idiot," I muttered. Chasing after him would be futile, so I ignored him and made my way to the hut.

"Hello? Paula?"

"Oh! You're back! I knew you could do it! I believed in you the whole time!" She commended me happily as I unlocked the cell. She grabbed her teddy bear and hugged me.

"Thank you so much Night! So, we need to get back to Twoson. Getting back may be difficult, now that Giygas may sense that one of his plans, among others, has failed, but if we combine our strength, then we have a better chance of stopping Giygas. Like you, I'm able to use PSI, and mine can be pretty deadly. I can tell you about it in due time, but for now, let's get out of here."

"Yeah. We should also record the melody of Lilliput Steps as well, shouldn't we?" I mentioned.

"You're right, but we should go back to Twoson first. I'll bet all the folks are worried sick about me."

"Right, let's go."

Before we left Happy Happy Village, we stopped by the drugstore to get some equipment.

"I need a weapon, an extra weapon besides my PSI. As strong as it is, it's limited by its usage," she noted.

"Usage?" I asked, not sure of exactly what she meant.

"PSI Energy. Our PSI is limited by how many times we can use it at once. It can recharge over time, but over the course of an hour or two. That's why we have to use it sparingly. And that's also why," she picked up a frying pan. "I'm going to use this as a weapon. Ooh, I feel dangerous..." she said with a grin. So she bought the frying pan, and also picked up some cold remedies along with it.

The trek back to Twoson was less treacherous with Paula by my side, so we were able to get back easily, and I didn't lose a single snack. She demonstrated some of her powers while fighting the same enemies from before, such as her PSI Fire and Freeze abilities. I got to show her the power of my PSI Wave, and that was when I knew that we had a chance. Once I saw the power of her PSI, I knew that we could do it. Our team wasn't complete yet, as we still needed the combined forces of the other two boys from the prophecy, but we were pretty strong already.


	5. Chapter 5: The Dark Side

Back in Twoson, we headed straight for Paula's house, the building with the name "Polestar" on the front. Inside, everyone ran up to Paula and greeted her happily, and then her parents came out to greet her with a warm, loving embrace. It was like a HugFest had started, and then I ended up getting caught up in it, as Mr. and Mrs. Polestar started hugging me and thanking me over and over, crying like their eyes were buckets of water. I tried to be as polite as possible, okay? I at least saw that they were happier than me and my affinity for spicy food- actually, that's not true. My love for all food that torches my mouth is like, unbeatable. Let me rephrase that: I guess they were happier than... a sweaty pig in mud? I dunno. Weird analogy, I know, but I'm at least trying to compare it to something, alright? Anyway, seeing that I was the one who rescued Paula, Mr. and Mrs. Polestar hugged me like 10 times, thanking and commending me to a point where I was almost confused.

"Thank you so much for saving our dear Paula! We can't nearly express our gratitude!" cried Mr. Polestar.

"You're welcome... I guess... I mean, it's my pleasure to help anyone who is in need." I looked around and saw that everyone was crowding around me. Oh, jeez. Instantly, a bunch of little kids started hugging me, jumping on me, thanking me, annoying me, like I was their hero. I mean, I guess I technically was, but I felt a bit uneasy nonetheless. I looked around for Paula, but she appeared to have left the room. With a few kids hanging onto me, I tried making my way over to Mr. and Mrs. Polestar.

"Hi, Mr. Polestar- woah, watch out, little buddy! I almost fell!" A little kid in a baseball helmet ran past, making me almost trip. "Mr. Polestar, a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Oh yes, hello Night!" Mr. Polestar greeted. "Paula is upstairs, changing. I know she just got back and we're all happy to see her again, but she told me of this prophecy that you guys needed to fulfill. Uh, were you going to tell me something?"

"Oh, no. I was simply introducing myself. I just had a peculiar feeling though... I forgot what it was," I responded.

"It's best not to worry about it, if it makes you feel so uneasy. If you have stress, you should relax for a bit," Mrs. Polestar kindly. "It's not good to have stress weighing you down."

"Thank you. You're very kind..." As I spoke, Paula walked into the current room, showing off her new attire. Instead of a pink, fluffy dress like before, she was now wearing a headband in front of her ribbon, short leggings and a pink hoodie and t-shirt instead of her dress, and red sneakers instead of dress shoes.

"Wow, that's more to my liking, to be honest," I said. "Are you sure this is the kind of personality you want to reflect, though?"

"Yes, I don't go out in public very often, so I want people to think I'm 'normal', or whatever their definition of 'normal' is." There was a sudden change in Paula's overall tone, she seemed slightly less innocent, and she gave off this very, "new age" vibe instead of before. To be honest, I wasn't complaining. I liked this version of Paula.

"Paula, please be safe out there," said Mr. Polestar.

"Will you call us often?" asked Mrs. Polestar.

"Mom, Dad, don't worry! I'll be fine! I'll call you guys sometimes. I promise." Paula quickly hugged her parents, kissed them both, and she joined me again.

"Night, please take care of our Paula," said Mrs. Polestar, holding both of my hands.

"Don't worry ma'am. I'll protect her with my life," I assured them.

"Thank you so much!" said Mr. Polestar. As we turned to leave, Mr. Polestar called, "Night, Paula, we believe in you!" I nodded, Paula waved goodbye, and we left the house.

"Where to?" asked Paula once out of the house.

"I don't know... I wanted to go back to Happy Happy Village because the second Sanctuary Location was there, but I had this weird feeling when I saved the village from that crazy guy, although I can't remember what..." I looked over at Paula, who had her eyes closed, fingers at her temples. "Uh, Paula?"

"Shh! I'm trying to concentrate! Reading one's short-term memory isn't easy, you know!" she said.

"Wait, what?" I paused and replayed what she had just said. "Reading my short-term memory?"

Paula paused and looked up. "What'd you think? I'm psychic, I'm telepathic. Your short-term memory says something about this guy named Agerate or something."

"Yes! That was it! That's what I was missing! There's truly more to you than meets the eye, Paula. You're amazing, thanks," I said. Paula nodded her head. "Let's head back to Onett. There's someone I need to confront."

It was still morning, but a bit later. The sun had risen much higher, an indication that we didn't have all the time in the world. Walking back to Onett was deemed a pain and would probably take 20 to 30 minutes, but I had to stay determined.

-Onett, 12:04 PM-

"Uggh... finally here! And we have to walk back, by the way," I groaned.

"That's pretty tedious," said Paula. "But as long as we just keep our heads up, as long as we have our goal in mind, we'll be fine."

We had a few battles along the way, so Paula got to practice fighting and using her frying pan as a weapon. I showed her how to swing and how to maximize power, and she taught me how to use PSI energy efficiently. I had a feeling that we would become really good friends.

As we walked into Onett, I held my arms out as if absorbing the environment. "I know I was here like, a day ago, but still! Nostolgia wave! Like riding the waves. Yooo, tubular, duuuude!" Paula held her face in her hand, but she couldn't help but laugh.

"Alright, you got me on that one. But we should get serious about-"

Grrooowwwwl... Cutting her off was a low growling sound, coming from her stomach.

"I guess this Agerate guy can wait. Let's eat something," she said.

Near the police station, surprisingly, was a Mach Pizza joint that I assume opened up while I rescued Paula. And even though I absolutely love spicy food, I just wanna say that Mach Pizza is pretty damn good too, especially for a fast food chain. When you compare it to a place like Papa Johnny's, Mach Pizza stands out as the far superior.

"Woah! They have Mach Pizza in Onett? Why didn't I know about this?" said Paula rather excitedly.

"While I went off to rescue you, I guess they opened up a branch here. Let's get a small pie though, because in case we don't finish a large..." I trailed off as we walked into the small building. We placed an order for a small pizza with Paula's half being pepperoni and extra cheese. My half was completely covered with extra habeneros and jalapenos.

Huh. Maybe that's why I like Mach Pizza.

I was disappointed that they didn't have any hot wings, but then I remembered that the place had just opened up, and it was usually Dominatos that had hot wings. Their wings are like, the freakin' bomb, unless you compare it to the wings they serve at TGI Viernes', then Viernes' is clearly better. Just my opinion though, just saying.

Reminds me of fatass Pokey who was like, 3,000 lbs. overweight.

Anyway, restaurants and fatass douches aside, we finished our pizza and bought some bottles of soda to take with us. Well, technically, I did. Paula got a bottle of water ("I don't drink soda. It's too sweet and unhealthy," she said.) and I bought a bottle of orange soda.

I remembered where Agerate's hut was, with his comletely uninteresting sign and everything, but I decided to visit home first.

"Mom?" I called as Paula and I entered the house. I went to go look for Mom, who was in the kitchen stirring a pot of something very familar.

"Oh! You're back!" she said as she hugged me. "Who's your friend?"

"Hello, I'm Paula. Nice to meet you!" said Paula, giving a small wave.

"Is that...?" I pointed to the stove with a big grin on my face. An unmistakable waft of spicy curry tickled my nose, sending nostalgic shivers through my skin and making my face scrunch up in delight.

"It's your favorite, Night. It's just about done, so I'll make you and her a bowl of curry. Go relax for a bit, you should rest before heading out again," said Mom.

"I mean, we already ate at Mach Pizza, but I could eat a bit more, I guess." My stomach is basically a black hole, so I'm always hungry. I thanked god that I wasn't Oliver Twist.

"Oh, no thank you, I already ate. Thank you, though," said Paula politely, not realizing she said "Thank you" twice. Looking at the clock on the stove, I saw that it was 12:37, so we couldn't really relax for too long.

We sat down at the dinner table and started talking again. Not really about anything special, just about what we would do after defeating Giygas, what we would do with our futures. While we were talking, Tracy came downstairs to say hi.

"Hi, big sis! Who's this?" she said, hugging me.

"Paula, this is my younger sister. Tracy, meet Paula," I introduced.

"Hi Paula! Are you taking care of Night?" said Tracy.

"Well, she seems to be taking care of me instead," laughed Paula. "But we're becoming good friends," said Paula.

"That's good, she's good at being friends with other people! She's very determined and won't give up no matter what!" she encouraged. Mom called her from the kitchen, and she walked off.

"She's such a sweet little girl!" said Paula. I nodded my head. While Tracy was absolutely wrong about me being good at making friends, because I have terrible people skills, (well, okay, maybe not terrible, but as in, I'm not good at starting the conversation or finding things to talk about) I couldn't deny Tracy being the sweetest sister ever. King trotted over to the table and lifted his nose up to Paula, sniffing her and memorizing her scent.

"Hi, boy! What's your name?" she cooed, rubbing King's neck and scratching his head, him licking her hand in response. "King, huh?" she read King's tag.

"He's a lazy boy, but he loves when other people come over. Well, except for Pokey, my stupid next-door neighbor. He growls and snarls at him because Pokey kicked him once. That was about the only time I had ever seen King so violent, barking up a storm, biting the hell out of Pokey as if he were dog food," I said. Unfortunately, at the time, King had his rabies shot already, not that we would've taken responsibility. Pokey ran home, blubbering like a little baby to tell his parents the false news of what happened. When Mr. and Mrs. Minch came over, all we could tell them was the truth, and a few minutes later, all we could hear were the shouts and screams of Mr. Minch letting Pokey have it.

I didn't tell Paula that, though.

"Oh, I understand now. Is that why you hate Pokey?" she guessed.

"Oh, believe me. That's just one reason why I hate him. If I were to list all the ways, we'd be here all day," I scoffed. Mom brought out a plate of curry over a bed of rice, and once I had a spoon in my hand, I thanked Mom for the meal and began to devour the curry as fast as humanly possible, surprisingly not getting indigestion. Huh. Lucky.

"Woah! How are you able to eat after all that pizza we had earlier?" gasped Paula, laughing a bit.

"My stomach is a black hole. At least for spicy food. Any other food, stay out!" I joked.

"Is it really spicy?" she asked. I shook my head with a mouthful of curry and rice.

"Her opinion on spicy food is different from the rest of us. One time, she ate a ghost chili without even breaking a sweat!" said Tracy. Okay, I'll admit, that chili was pretty damn hot, even for me. I was trying not to sweat in the moment, but my mouth was actually burning. Guess you could call it the _heat_ of the moment. After that, my obsession only grew, and I'm not ashamed of it.

Come at me.

"Thif cuwwy ishn't shpicy in da swightest bet," I mumbled with my mouth rudely full of food. "Sorry, excuse my vulgar behavior. I just love... never mind." Scraping the last spoonful of curry into my mouth, I thanked Mom (not with my mouth full, obviously) and Paula and I left.

"That was hilarious, to be honest," laughed Paula, who must've been trying to hold in her laughter ever since I spoke in that funny voice with food in my mouth.

I pretended like I didn't know what she meant. "What was? Me scarfing down my food or the story about Pokey?"

"Well, you scarfing down your food like crazy was pretty hilarious too," she giggled.

"But the story about Pokey wasn't?"

We hiked up the mountain trail overlooking the town, leading up to the top of the small mountain, or at least near the top. The mountain isn't that big, bigger than a hill, but possibly the smallest category of a mountain. Some wild animals tried attacking us along the way, but they were more bothersome than actual threats. Soon enough, we reached Agerate's pathetic little shack and I knocked on the door.

"Agerate? You in there? It's me, Night! I need to talk to you about something." Within the shack, I heard an audible gasp, followed by quick footsteps descending a ladder. Seeing no other choice, Paula and I entered the shack, making our way around all the garbage and other weird shit piled up on the floor and following Agerate down the ladder.

I had never been down in Agerate's cave, I'd only known about it. What I didn't know was that it was huge and had a long tunnel leading down to a small room. Inside the room once we got there was Agerate, backed up against the wall in a frightened stance.

"I-I-I know what you're here for! I have nothing to do with the statue!" he cried.

"I just wanna talk to you. I want to know, how did you find the statue? Why did you give it to Carpainter? What were you thinking?"

"Ahh! T-too many questions! A-ask the statue!"

"What the hell are you talking about..." I looked around and saw the statue had appeared behind me and Paula. All of a sudden, Agerate clutched his head and howled in agony, collapsing to the floor.

"Agerate!" I yelled. Then Paula dropped to the floor as well, but then my brain began to turn- twist- I don't know how to describe it. It felt like everything was spinning, but not in the dizzy kind of way. It was weird. Then all of a sudden, everything turned dark with neon borders like something straight out of a futuristic game or something. I was standing in the middle of town, but all the buildings had neon, rainbow altering outlines, and people outside looked like they were in a trance. Paula was on the ground, but she gained conciousness and stood up.

"Where the heck...?" she looked around.

"The exact same thing I'm wondering over here. Why's everything suddenly dark and neon? Wait-" I tried using my night vision, but to no avail. "My night vision. My night vision doesn't work. Even though it looks like it's nighttime, I can't use it. Well, not like I can choose to anyway. Also, just a few minutes ago, it wan't nighttime. No doubt this is the work of that god awful Mani Mani Statue, but what the hell is going on here? Where are we?" A man walked by just then, and I took the opportunity to find out what the hell was going on.

"Sir, can you tell us where we are? We happen to be, well, lost," I asked politely. The man looked confused, as if I was asking an unusual question.

"You're not serious, are you? This is Moonett. Do you have amnesia or something?" he doubted.

"Moonett? What?" I was honestly confused.

"What're you, hard of hearing? Look, I've had a rough day, I just want to get home so I can have a rest period."

"A... what? Are you kidding me? It's called sleeping. 'So you can have a sleep?' Like, what the hell does that mean? What is this place? Why is it suddenly nighttime?"

"If you're really that dumb, I guess I'll tell you what everyone around here knows. And what everyone else knows is that this place is called Moonett, where it's always night in the moon world, and if you're really dumb, then 'yes' is 'no', and 'no' means 'yes'. Do you understand now?"

"Yes, I understand," I said, instantly forgetting what he had just said.

"What? 'Yes', you understand? That makes no sense! Unless you meant 'no', you understand."

Realizing my mistake, I hastily tried to correct it. "Yes- er, I mean, no, that's what I meant." The man shook his head and walked off muttering, "Kids these days." That left us standing there, absolutely confudled. We saw our only option was to explore the creepy weird place.

Walking around, I noticed that it wasn't too different from regular Onett, just that everything was dark and reversed (left was right and up was down), and people were walking around in a trance-like state, much like the Happyists in H.H. Village. Some paintings tried attacking us, yes, you heard me right. I said paintings, as in a painted canvas (that could move around and attack). Not only abstract paintings either, but a bunch of other weird shit, like a 40 mph sign and an old fashioned red gas pump, both with eyes. Freakin' eyes. Oh, I may have described them as singular but believe me, there was plenty more where they came from. The gas pumps counted down from three, and if we didn't destroy it in time, ugh... I don't even wanna know what would happen, but the important thing is that we demolished them anyway, not having to worry about some weird moving objects beating the crap out of us. The street signs attacked by ramming into us, in which I used a lot of energy with Lifeup. Seriously. If I didn't have PSI Lifeup, Paula and I would've been knocked out or even killed, because the world is a cruel (and very odd) place.

"We can't spend all our time fighting. Sure we may grow from it, slightly, but we need to find a way out of here," I mentioned after yet another battle.

"What... what if it turns out we're trapped here? What if this is hell? We didn't do anything to deserve to go to hell!" worried Paula.

"That's a little... negative. I mean, we should have hope, 'cuz think about it. The Mani Mani Statue didn't kill us, because unless the statue has the power to send us to hell, which I highly doubt, we're definitely alive and well. If we are self-conscious of our actions, then it can't be a dream either. Make the most of a bad situation, ya know?"

"Um, I think it's 'make the best of a bad situation', not most," Paula pointed out.

"Whatever. The poiint is, we just need to focus on being positive and getting out of this dark hellhole. In order to do that, we need to find the Mani Mani Statue who teleported us here in the first place... and that's the problem. how do we find out where it is?" I questioned.

"I don't know... but my dad always told me that if I was lost, all I need to do is retrace my steps. We could do that," suggested Paula.

"Oh! Bingo! Paula, you're a genius. Either that or I'm stupid. Hopefully the former. But anyway! Think, where were we when we got transported here? The cave, Agerate's tunnel. Our first step should be to look there."

"But what if it's not there? Where else can we look?" asked Paula.

"Well, where have we not looked? Where ever we haven't gone is where it may possibly be. We haven't gone to the town hall, the cave from which we came, or the game corner. Let's check the town hall first." We were standing at the southern part of Moonett, what would otherwise be north of Onett town, near the burger joint. Trying to remember where everything would usually be except in reverse, we eventually made it to the town hall, heading inside to find out if the the statue was waiting for us.

"Excuse me, have you noticed a weird golden statue about?" I asked the secretary. She shook her head and replied in a very Moonett fashion.

"Yes. I haven't seen anything of the sort. Did you bonk your head or something? Maybe you should take a rest period and drive off those hallucinations. Maybe visit the hospital while you're at it, get that checked," she scoffed, rolling her eyes. My hand twitched, but I held back from smacking her after her rude comment.

Storming out of the town hall, we headed towards the game corner. An odd, golden glow came from the back, where Franky used to be, in the regular world, I mean. The inside building was deserted, all the arcade machines were either off or broken. I couldn't tell. The difference between the regular game corner and this one besides civilization was that this one was actually clean. I may not have described it, but the regular world game corner had a bunch of dust, food crumbs, tokens, and a bunch of other crap scattered all over the floor. Some of the machines were broken and out of order, including that Dance Dance Revolution thing in the corner. I guess the arcade people didn't have the funds to replace or fix the machines. Either that or the Sharks took over so they didn't have the chance to fix the machines.

Walking through the deserted arcade with just Paula turned out to be pretty eerie, considering also that the Mani Mani Statue was most likely waiting for us outside. I didn't have a flashlight in my bag, but Paula used her PSI Fire to light up the area, making it less creepy. A wave of nostolgia hit me, reminding me of a time when I didn't have night vision.

Sure enough, waiting for us outside in the backyard of the arcade was the statue. Grabbing my bat, I took a whack at the statue. Yeah, I know what you're saying to yourself; "Baseball bat solves everything, doesn't it Night?" Look, it was the first thing I could think of, alright? But it was a pretty dumbass thing at that, I'll admit. The statue attacked by using a familiar looking power, which looked very similar, if not exactly like my PSI Wave attack. The attack that only I could use. With the force of the attack blowing me back into the fence, I began to get pretty pissed.

"How the hell did you learn that?!" I yelled stupidly at the statue. As expected, it didn't respond, unless you count a response as another PSI Wave attack knocking both me and Paula down.

"Paula, you alright?" I called, not doing so hot myself. Paula cracked her neck and replied, "I'll be fine. But stand still, I'm gonna try putting a PSI Shield around us." Without further warning, she concentrated some PSI Energy into her hands, forming a sort of clear purple protective barrier around her, then me. And it was just in time, too, as the statue tried using thee attack again, but the shield absorbed the attack.

"You damn copier! Why don't I show you how the attack is really done?" Gathering more and more energy, I unleashed a stronger version of PSI Wave.

"PSI Wave... β!" Releasing the stored power, two beams of psychokinetic energy pierced through the statue, then two sets of two energy... slabs? slammed into the body. However, as powerful as it may have been, the attack wasn't nearly enough to destroy it. Paula tried using PSI Freeze, which must've done some significant damage to the statue. All the while, the golden entity still tried fighting back with many different attacks besides the rather insulting PSI Wave mimick attack, such as a nearly useless neutralizing attack, sometimes making our shields disappear, or even a flash of light that made me sneeze uncontrollably for a few seconds, even making Paula's eyes tear up due to temporary blindness, not in a "boo-hoo I'm so sad" sense. When the shields disappeared, te statue got a chance to attck, mostly attacking me. Sometimes Paula would take a hit, but she kept her spirits up and dealt the damage back twice as hard. I could only use PSI Wave, and eventually ran out of energy. Paula saw this and focused more on offense than defense, making sure to deal really heavy damage with each blast of her PSI attacks, and eventually ensuring our victory. After Paula landed a final PSI Thunder on the golden statue, the statue began to flash, it began to flicker, then disappearing entirely, bringing the entirety of Moonett down with it.

"We did it... we're finally out of there!" cried Paula happily.

"Celebrate later. We have something else to worry about," I pointed out. I was the first to notice that we were back in the cave which we came from, but Agerate was still lying either unconscious or dead upon the floor. Rushing to his side, I knelt down and took off my hat.

"Agerate! Please tell me you're alive! Wake up! Come on. Come on, dude!" I shouted, vigorously shaking Agerate's body. After a few seconds, Agerate began to stir, fluttering his eyes open.

"Uh... where am I?" he asked innocently. At first, I thought he was joking, but his expressionless eyes said otherwise.

"Agerate, I think you were also being controlled by the statue. You've done nothing wrong. Don't worry, it's not your fault. You didn't know what you were doing," I assured him. He blinked.

"Everything seems so surreal. So... dream-like. Like, I know that I'm living, but it feels like I'm not. What happened? All of a sudden I fell asleep or something, then had a super vivid dream about an opposite version of Onett. Then it all disappeared, as if nothing ever exsisted from that world."

"Weird. The same thing happened to us, but you didn't show up. The thing is, it wasn't a dream. We were all being controlled by that golden statue, which was imbued with evil power. Thanks to us, though, we stopped the evil statue from destroying us entirely. It's all because of our amazing powers!" I bragged. Paula thankfully dragged me back and clamped her hand on my mouth before I could say anything else.

"Don't worry about her," she smiled, keeping a surprisingly strong clamp on my mouth causing me to struggle. "All that reverse-world stuff got to her. Made her kinda loopy, y'know?"

Agerate just laughed. "That's what some messed up statue does to you, huh. But it does make me kind of jealous, you know, not being born with cool PSI abilities, being able to travel across the world and explore... if I had you powers, not specifically either one of you, I would seize that opportunity and use it to benefit the world. To help fight off evil forces. In this world, this dangerous world, there exist many who seek to rule all of humanity, as cliché as it sounds. It's the truth however, but with your power, it can be helped. Night, and you..." he gestured to me, then Paula.

"Oh, please excuse my manners!" exclaimed Paula. "I hadn't properly introduced myself, but my name is Paula."

"Eh, it's fine, you're all good. But, Night, Paula. Take this opportunity, do many incredible things with it. You can do it, you can do anything. Both of you... I believe in you."

"Thanks, Agerate." With a simple nod, Paula and I left, back to the entrance.

"What I don't understand," I started, "Is how he didn't end up in the same place as us. Did it have to do with proximity or if we were touching or something?"

"Well, we weren't necessarily touching or in that close of proximity to each other. Anyway, we should just be glad that we got out of there alive," said Paula.

For once, I took to consider this and relaxed. Looking up, I noticed that the sun was beginning to set, but the sky was still moderately clear of clouds. Setting over the horizon as we traveled back to Twoson, the sun seemed to chant, "Give it your all! Seize the opportunity!"

"Seize the opportunity, huh?" I muttered to myself as I reached my hand toward the sun, causing the glorious rays to peek around the spaces between my fingers. A little bright for my liking, but warm and soothing nonetheless, encouraging me to take my time, that there was no rush.

However, I misconceived what it really meant. It meant the opposite.


	6. Chapter 6: Runaway Debt

After the events of the statue and Moonett, everything seemed alright for a short time, but soon we began running into problems and setbacks.

Okay, this one wasn't necessarily a burden, so to speak. Making a trip back to Happy Happy Village wasn't a problem nor setback, just a bit tedious. Hey, I wasn't the one who said to wait to record the melody of Lilliput Steps. The trip back was made eaisier by some nice dude who built a bridge, so we didn't have to go the confusing route again. The whole trip there and back took maybe a few hours, but it was made worth it by the amount of enemies we fought along the way.

It'd take too long to describe every little detail, but here's an abridged version:

"Man, this place is huge!" I called into the cavern of Lilliput Steps. Paula followed close behind, frying pan in hand and PSI at the ready. There were some tough enemies, mostly just moles and bats, but the strongest enemies were these big bears that clawed at us and dealt heavy damage. After fighting enough of them, we found their weakness to be PSI Freeze, so whenever we ran into the bears, Paula took them down like it was no one's business. With Paula at my side, it turned out to be a lot easier, although by only a little.

Soon, we reached the end of the cavern, where a glowing portal exactly like the one in Giant Step was waiting for us.

"You finally got here," spoke a deep voice. "This is the second Your Sanctuary location, but it's mine now. Take it from me, if you dare..." Out of the portal came an oversized, blood dripping, grotesque looking mole.

"Yo, wha's good? I'm the Mondo Mole, homie. Yo, this is totally radical, m'dudettes," he said in a very casual tone, speaking in retro slang.

"Dude, like, no one speaks like that anymore. What're you, a surfer dude? If you are, then that's totally chill and tubular and all, but we gotta defeat you and get the melody of Lilliput Steps."

"Night. Did you seriously just say 'tubular?'" said Paula, stifling a laugh. "You like, just told him that no one speaks like that anymore."

"Hey, don't judge! Surfing is awesome! One of my favorite past times, as a matter of fact. If only dad didn't lose like, three quarters of his money."

"Yeah. Surfin' is cool. However," Mondo Mole grew more serious, then started speaking in more contemporary urban vernacular. "Y'all ain't gon' just come up in here startin' shit. A'ight, we ain't doin' this. I ain't gon' fight no kids, but if y'all insist on takin' that melody, then I'ma have to tear you apart!" Mondo Mole jumped at us, slashing harder than the bears did. The attack missed, so I took the opportunity to use a new power I had gained from fighting the enemies earlier.

"Hate to do this to you. You're a chill guy and all, but we need that melody! PSI Paralysis α!" As if I were using a stun gun, a.k.a. taser, little jolts of electricity shot out of my fingers and stunned MM, first making him vibrate vigorously, then locking his limbs in place, immobilizing him.

"Hunnh?! What happened? Why can't I move?" He yelled.

"Paula, now!" I called. She used her PSI Freeze, dealing a good amount of damage, while I used PSI Wave β, then finishing him off with a whack in the gut with my bat. Mondo Mole's body faded away, along with the portal, and we walked through the exit to the Sanctuary. Holding out my Sound Stone, the second part of the melody floated through the air and rested in the stone. The power of the Sanctuary healed our wounds, then all of a sudden, I caught a glimpse of a baby in a red cap in my mind's eye. Much like the vision of King at Giant Step, this one was a vision from long ago, where I thought I was seeing myself as a baby. See? I wasn't kidding when I said that I had that hat since I was a baby.

"Night? Night, are you alright?" said Paula.

"Oh, yeah. I just... ah, never mind," I replied quickly. "Come on, let's get back to Twoson."

xxxx

The journey back was not as long, but that was because I was lost in my mind, thinking about what those visions could mean. I'm sure it wasn't a coincidence, considering that it had happened twice, at both Sanctuary Locations.

Nevertheless, we arrived in Twoson safely. We decided to head south to the next town over, Threed, and this is where the problems began. Threed was on the other side of a long tunnel that ran under a large hill, but when walking through the tunnel, we were being chased by ghosts. Yes. Ghosts. Hey, I'm not making this up, things are just weird sometimes. Very weird. The ghosts caught us, but they didn't do anything to us, except drag us back to the entrance of the tunnel from which we came. Seeing no point in trying again, we decided to head back to Twoson. Dawn broke over the horizon as we walked north back up to Twoson, gaining height all the time.

"Hey Night, aren't you kinda... uwaaauw... tired?" yawned Paula.

I couldn't lie, after pulling an all-nighter in H.H. Village and Lilliput Steps, I was feeling a bit drowsy, so we agreed to visit Paula's house and take a nap.

It wasn't easy staying awake while walking up to Paula's house, but we managed. Paula spoke to her parents real quick above the noisy kids, and she motioned for me to follow her, upstairs to her bedroom where she rolled out a sleeping bag from her closet. I didn't bother climbing into the bag, because I was just so ready to pass out. I remember Paula putting down a pillow for my head, and then I fell asleep. I don't remember most of what I dreamed about, but the only thing I do remember was shaking hands with a boy in glasses. He had blonde hair with short hair, and was wearing a green sports jacket and green pants and a white shirt with a bow tie.

Once we both woke from slumber, we decided to hit the road, find a way to get to Threed safely. Once outside Paula's house, though, we were met by a guy from Burglin Park.

"Hey, yous two. Ey, Everdred's lookin' for ya. Said he wanted to give ya somethin'. I suppose ya know where the guy is, so I'll leave ya to it," he said in a weird accent, then left. That left us to walk over to Everdred's house.

Everdred's house still smelled like alcohol and ass, but what we were there for made up for it (so I thought).

"Hey, Night, Paula. I'll save the how-do-you-do's for another time. So." He took a large swig of beer from the bottle in his hand. "I was going to ask you if we could join forces and become a team, but after we fought the other day, I had the feeling you didn't like me and would've said no. So instead, I'm gonna give you this." He walked over to a drawer and pulled out a wad of new, crisp bills. At the sight, a million thoughts ran through my head, starting with doubts; was this guy for real? Were those bills real? How much was it worth?

"Now I ain't got no PSI abilities, but I know what you're thinkin'. Yes, I'm serious, and yes this is for real. Wanna know how much? This wad of bills right here, worth $10,000. Yeah, get a loada that! This is sorta my graditude for bringing Paula back, and for knockin' some sense into me. It made me realize that I didn't wanna be a bad person, because I was on the brink of it. Go use that money for something good. Do whatever you want with it, it's your money now."

"Wait," I interjected. "Are you sure this isn't some kind of scam? No tricks? Why give me a huge wad of bills? Wouldn't that make you poor? You could've used that for something."

"Little girl, you ask too many questions. Lemme tell you, I've got more money than I know how to spend. Don't you worry about me, I'm fine the way I am," he confirmed.

"Well then if this is real, then, I don't know what to say. Th-thank you so much!" I bowed.

"You be sure to commit an act of kindness with that, a'ight? Alright, take care."

"Thanks Everdred! You're not so bad after all," I added.

"Night, it was the least I can do. I believe in you, both of you. Goodbye."

"Bye, Everdred." Wad of bills in hand, we exited the house, thinking of what to do.

"Paula, What should we do? With this money, I mean," I said.

"Oh, I know! We should go see the Runaway Five concert at the Chaos Theater in town! My parents were planning on taking me there, but they had so much work on their hands that they couldn't. I don't know if they're still there, but we can at least check," she suggested. Following her advice, we walked up town to the Chaos Theater. Sure enough, a van was parked there, and two guys were standing out back next to the van. One was fat wearing a red coat, and the other one was skinny wearing a dark green coat.

"Hey, Eddie, looky there!" exclaimed the green one. "It's her, It's Paula!"

"So it is, Chuck! Hey, you two!" He beckoned to me and Paula, who shook our hands vigorously.

"You're Paula, aren't you? So good to see you! We wanted to see you, but you weren't here!" said Chuck.

"Yeah, we heard you were kidnapped. But it's a good thing you're okay!" exclaimed Eddie.

"Oh, well, it couldn't have been done without her!" As she said this, she pointed to me.

"Oh, yeah, hi. I'm Night. I saved Paula from those god awful Happy Happyists, and I did it alone. I had to-"

"Okay, anyway, we came here to see your show, but we were afraid you had already left. I've always wanted to see you guys perform, so thank goodness you're still here!"

The two looked at each other as if they didn't know how to respond, but they forced a smile anyway. "Hey, I've got a deal for you guys. Night, was it? Since you brought Paula back, we'll give you these backstage passes. After the show, you can meet us in the dressing room for a meet and greet of the band, but we have something to talk about." Eddie tried smiling as best as he could, but I could see a hint of depression in his eyes. They entered the theater through the back, while we went through the main entrance, using our backstagw passes as tickets. Through the main doors, we entered the theater room which looked like a night club, because of some tables and a lot of people standing around, talking, waiting for the show to start.

We tried standing up next to the stage, but some idiot was already standing there. "Don't stand so close to me. I farted, heh heh." With looks of disgust on our faces, me and Paula stood elsewhere, next to a door on the left side of the theater. Then some fangirl noticed our backstage passes and begged us to take her into the dressing room with us. Annoyed, I gave in, and right at that moment the show began. The crowd began cheering as the lights went dark, then two spotlights shone on Ed and Chuck. The vibration from the amount of cheering caused me to cover my ears, yet still able to hear the guys onstage.

"Hey, welcome to the Chaos Theater Runaway Five concert in Twoson, how's everyone doin'?" shouted Chuck. The response was deafening. "Alright, alright. I see some people recognized us, but we need everyone on board with us so how's everybody doing today?!" he shouted quickly. Again, the roar of the feedback was thunderous, and they seemed pretty satisfied with that.

"Cool, cool. Before we start, I wanna give a shoutout to a very special guest in the audience, Paula Polestar!" On cue, a spotlight shone on Paula, who politely waved and smiled as people cheered and applauded. "But we can't forget, she couldn't have been here without our other special guest, Night, who saved her from the kidnapper!" The spotlight switched over to me, but I don't remember what happened a few seconds afterward. As soon as the light shone on me, it was as if the all the light of heaven combined with the brightest star were assaulting my vision, nearly blinding me for life.

I forgot to mention, due to my permanent night vision, I can't look at bright lights since my night vision is supposed to pick up even the faintest source of light, making it brighter so that I can see. You may be wondering, how does that explain how I don't go blind in the daytime? Think about how your vision slowly adjusts to darkness over time, then if you're exposed to sudden light, your vision again slowly adjusts over time. It's about gradual exposure to light. My vision is the same as everone else in the daytime, and at night, my eyes adjust to the darkness and then make things bright. The downside is, I'm never able to see nighttime, only for a few minutes. It's always daytime in my vision. The only time I can choose for it to be dark is when I close my eyes. Then my night vision can't pick up any light, canceling the effect. I know, it's complicated, but once you know how it works, it just rolls right off the tongue.

Once the show started, the Runaway Five played a couple of songs, thanked their fans, played more songs, and then the show was over, unfortunately. I actually came to like their music, a sort of jazz/blues type. I'm not really a music critic or anything, so that's why it's my opinion to say that they were really good. Besides, I like smooth jazz and blues music.

Once the show was over, the girl who was bugging me began pestering us again, until we finally got up and went into the dressing room. Inside were the members of the band all dressed in their show clothes, sweating profusely.

"Thanks for comin', you two. Hey, would you give us a moment?" Eddie turned around to the annoying fangirl, giving her his autograph among the other members. "Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about something, not like you can really help out with it, but I figured it's worth knowing. First, I'll introduce you to the members of or group. Our stage names are Gorgeous, Lucky, Groovy, Keyboar, Nice, and Okay," he named, pointing to himself first, then Chuck, then a guy with drums, a guy with a keyboard piano, a guy with a bass, and a saxophone guy. As Paula and I went up to shake their hands, they introduced themselves one by one.

"Ey. What's movin', or should I say, groovin'? Yeah, that's chill. I'm Groovy, but you can call me Dylan, or even just Dyl is chill," said Groovy as he shook my hand.

The guy with the bass, Nice, was next. "Yo. I got the flow. I don't got a bow, only my fingers to make the bass sound real low. I got the flow. My name's Nice, as cool as ice. You can call me Greg, guess it rhymes with peg. I forgot the '-ory', in Greg, but hey, don't worry. 'Greg' itself isn't boring, but now's the end, so ends the story," rapped Nice.

Once he was finished, Paula and I applauded for him. "Yeah! That was cool! Nice freestyle rap, dude."

Next was The guy with the keyboard, Keyboar, obviously. "Hey, I'm Keyboar, hence the keyboard, but my real name is Johnny, or even just John. Feel free to call me that. Hope you enjoyed the show, thanks for comin' by."

"Oh, the show was great!" answered Paula. "We loved the music!" Keyboar smiled and nodded.

The last guy we greeted was Okay, the saxophone guy. "Hey, what's up? I'm Okay. Not just the state of being, but also my stage name. I don't think I'm just okay, though. I think I'm phenomenal when I perform, even if I do get a bit of stage fright. But I always tell myself, 'Everything's going to be okay, just like your name.' And everything turns out okay."

"That's some good motivation right there. Amazing what a little motivation does for you," I said.

"Hey, Night, Paula. I need to tell you about what's going on," interrupted Eddie. Turning our attention to him, we saw that he was rather upset, with a big frown on his face.

"Listen. I don't know if you can help us or not, but this is a financial issue," he mentioned. Instantly, the wad of bills came to mind.

"We're in great debt to the Chaos Theater. They're keeping us in this phony contract and they won't let us go until we pay it off."

"Okay, how much is it?" I asked. I don't know if it was fated to be or a mere coincidence, but I was utterly stunned when he responded with, "A debt of $10,000."

Instantly, I reached inside my bag and pulled out the wad of bills worth exactly $10,000. "$10,000, you say? Well, does this talk?" I handed the bills to Ed, and after counting it, his jaw just _dropped_.

"... Where the heck did you get this kind of money?! This is... this can't be..." he stuttered.

"Oh, this is real, alright. 100% real," I assured, though even _I_ wasn't sure if it was real either.

"Y-you're gonna pay off the debt for us? I-I don't know what to say... or do... if this is really for real, I... we are forever in _your_ debt," he gasped.

"You don't owe us a single dollar or cent. Someone gave me that $10,000 and told me to do an act of kindness with it. I'm simply doing an act of kindness," I said with a smile. "But wait, how do I pay off the debt? Where do I...?"

"Oh, you gotta exit the theater room, then the manager's office is on the right as soon as walk out. Give that money to the manager and he'll call us."

We followed Eddie's directions to the manager's office, and he called us in when I knocked.

"Can I help you kids? If you want to meet and greet the Runaway Five, they're-"

"Oh, we already met the Runaway Five, and they told us about the debt they're in," I interrupted.

"Oh, you want to pay off their debt for them? How nice of you kids, but you're gonna need more than the spare change in your pockets to pay off-" I interrupted again by slamming the fat wad of crisp, legitimate bills onto the desk, effectively shutting him up. However, his expression didn't change. "Sorry, I'm very near-sighted, could you bring it around so I can-" I picked the wad of bills up and threw it at his face, shutting him up again. The bills hit his face, then landed in his hands. He took off his glasses, counting the bills carefully, narrowing his eyes, putting his glasses back on and repeating, his opening his eyes up wide once he realized that the bills were real. On my side, I had my eyes closed, fists clenched, praying that the bills _were_ actually real. When I heard the manager say, "Will the members of the Runaway Five please enter my office please?" I became even more tense. A few seconds later, they spilled into the office, first Chuck, then Eddie, then Greg, Johnny, Dylan, and Peter following behind.

Hesitantly, the manager picked up the contract, and with a swift motion, tore it in half. "Your debt of $10,000 has been payed off. The Runaway Five are free to go now." While he said this, he slowly removed his glasses from his face with a mixed expression of excitement and anger painted on his face. Turning to the members of the band, their expressions turned from surprise to utter happiness. One by one, they began leaving, starting with Chuck, then Eddie, then the rest of the members.

"It was nice to be here, but you kept us a bit too long," started Chuck.

"In that time, we prepared for this moment by coming up with this song," continued Eddie.

"Why you'd keep us like that, who knows, but that was just wrong," said Peter.

"It was all thanks to Night and Paula, 'cuz now we're free," sang Dylan.

"You selfishly kept us here, but those two made you see," Johnny carried on.

"That you're nothing more than a selfish prick, we can that that's your shtick. Dude, don't be such a dick, we know you need the money, but it's wrong to trick, everyone knows that, even you and me," finished Greg, the best at rapping. With that, he followed the rest of the band out the door into the van that was waiting outside. The manager had messed up his hair, his face turning redder than Eddie's coat.

"Er, uh, sorry, I guess," I said.

"Well, look on the bright side, you got $10,000 dollars," added Paula positively. With that, we left the building with the Runaway Five.

Outside, the band had already boarded the bus, it Eddie was waiting for us. "Hey, uh, I was aware of the ghost problem in the Twoson Tunnel, so as a thanks for helping us out, you can ride in our bus if you want. We'll take you to Threed, though, because we're planning to hit Fourside for our next big show, because we heard that the beautiful Venus is in Topolla Theater in Fourside. We can't take you there because they'll think we're kidnapping you two, which ain't good on our part, and all them fans'll get jealous. We don't want that either. We can't drop you off in the Dusty Dunes Desert either, because it's too hot there in the day. I figured the farthest we can go is Threed. I heard a magical place called Saturn Valley lies north of Threed, but I don't know for sure. Since we can't stop there, we figured you might wanna check it out for us." Hearing this, I remembered that a Sanctuary Location was in Saturn Valley, Milky Well to be exact. That would be our third Your Sanctuary Location.

"No, that's absolutely fine! Threed is as far as we'll go. Besides, it'll be good seing my old hometown again. I used to live in Threed, but then we moved. I don't recall why, however. In any case, let's get the heck outta here!" I said as we piled into the van. There were three seats in the front, so Paula sat in the middle while I sat on the far right, and Eddie sat on the left behind the wheel. Ed started the engine, and we were off from there.

Ten to fifteen minutes later, we left Twoson and entered the tunnel. The red-eyed ghosts saw us and tried chasing us, but Eddie had turned on the car's bluetooth thingy and started blasting "My Life" by Billy Joel with the windows open. Paula quietly hummed the song and moved her head back and forth while Eddie and I yelled the lyrics. The song ended and "For The Longest Time" began playing, but the tunnel's end came up right as he sang, "Once I thought my innocence was gone," Once we were out of the tunnel, we had entered Threed, but all I was saying in my mind was, "What the hell happened here?"

The Threed I used to know was green and autumn colored, nice and bright and sunny. This was something quite different from what I remembered. The town was dark and was cloaked in an eerie grayish purple hue with a creepy black cloud looming overhead. The cloud was so dark that The sunlight was barely visible. A sudden shiver ran down my spine as we drove through town, passing buildings and houses, but rarely ever people. We came to a bus stop and Eddie let us off.

"I didn't realize that Threed woulda looked like this. It sucks, but I'm sure you two can fight through it. You're brave, you can do it," encouraged Eddie.

"Thanks Eddie, thanks for the ride," I replied.

"No, no. It was the least I can do. You helped us, after all. I should be thanking you girls for getting us out of that situation." He nodded, and we turned to leave, but then he added, "Night, Paula, remember to strive for excellence. I believe in you, on all of our behalf. You can do it." Sliding out of the van, we closed the door and waved goodbye, watching the van drive away. Although that was out of the way, now we had Threed to deal with.

As I explained before, Threed had turned creepy. Even with night vision lighting up some dark areas, the town was cloudy and gloomy as hell nonetheless.

After walking around, refamiliarizing myself with the town, I saw that they had replaced Dominatos with another Mach Pizza branch, but the store was closed. There was a drugstore that was (thankfully) open, and there I withdrew some money and we replaced our weapons; I replaced my current bat with a minor league bat, and Paula replaced her frying pan with a thicker one. The thicker, the stronger, i guess. We also picked up some road snacks and some first aid supplies just in case.

With our new equipment, we went to explore the graveyard to the north of the town. The graveyard was split up into two sections, and we went to both. In the middle of the graveyards was the church that my family and I used to go to every Sunday. In case you were wondering, no, it's not a Your Sanctuary Location. It's just a plain ol' sanctuary. That's all the building was, one room. Due to the state of the town, I doubted that the church was being used.

When I lived in Threed for the few years, I wasn't allowed to explore the graveyards. Mom always kept me from going too far. Now, after fighting our way through some creepy enemies such as ghosts and zombies and zombie dogs, haunted mannequins, putrid smelling trash can monsters and flies, I finally got to see what was behind the graveyard. From where I was standing, I saw a passage leading underground, but two zombies were blocking it. The zombies didn't even bother attacking us. It's not like they were friendly, they just weren't hostile.

Oh yeah, and they stared into our souls as well.

Seeing that we ran out of options, we headed back into town to sleep at the hotel, but as we came to the corner of the street, there was a dude standing there, peeking out from behind a street sign.

"Hey, who are you hidng from?" I asked. The guy jumped and turned around.

"Oh, uh, heh. Check out that chick over there, see? Standing in front of the hotel?" he pointed to a woman in a very skimpy outfit. She had glasses on, so I couldn't see her eyes, but something just seemed very suspicious about her. The way she wasn't moving at all, standing so still like a statue, it was almost as if she was a zombie as well. But that couldn't be, could it? Her skin was tanned, only slightly darker than mine. But I remembered us walking by the hotel a few minutes earlier, and she hadn't been there then. Suddenly, without warning, she entered the hotel. I couldn't take the suspense any more, so we went into the hotel after her.

Not even the hotel was pleasant. The lights flickered on and off at random, and there was no one was to be seen at all. Only the creepy woman. She ended up walking into a room, into which we followed her.

Big mistake.

Waiting for us in the room was not just the lady, but a horde of zombies, ghosts, dog zombies, and more ghosts which cornered us against the door. Paula tried opening the door, but it wouldn't open. Turning our attention back to the horde, it got closer, closing us in the circle. The zombies and ghosts looked about ready to kill, eyes as red as the blood dripping from their mouths agape.

That was the last thing I remembered before they knocked the daylights out of us.


	7. Chapter 7: Wake Up Call

**A/N: I'm sorry for not posting in so long! I'll do my best to keep up with it, but I can't be expected to post all the time. Thank you for your patience, please enjoy.**

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I awoke to a great pounding within my cranium. My eyes opened, and quickly adjusted to the blackness, seeing that we were in some underground cave or something... Paula was still out, crumpled on the floor.

"Paula! Wake up!" I whisper-yelled. I shook her shoulder, and she stirred, picking up her head and looking around, searching blindly for me. Eventually, I had some sense to pull out a flashlight in my bag, illuminating the area.

"You all right, Paula?" I asked.

"Yeah. You?"

"Fine. Where are we though? It looks like we're in an underground cell or something. I assume the zombies did this to us, but why?" I saw a door on the other side of the room, but there was no knob or handle on it. Only a keyhole for a key that we didn't have.

"Damn. It's locked. What do we do?" I asked.

"Hold on, Night. I'm going to try and contact a friend who can save us, like I did with you. I'm contacting a friend whom we've never met."

"What's his name-" I started.

"Shh! I'm concentrating!" Complete silence followed, and then she opened her eyes and smiled. "Help is on the way."

"But who-" I started.

"You ask too many questions! Just wait and see, he'll be here in a few hours time; you'll see."

I stared. "A few hours?! What if the zombies come back by then and decide to eat us? He won't be able to save us when the last of one of our arms is sticking out of their mouths! What's he gonna do, yell at them? Punch them? It's not gonna bring us back to life! This is a day I should've stayed home...!"

"Night! Pull yourself together! The zombies aren't gonna eat us! The boy will save us from this cell because he's good with gadgets. I know this, remember? Mind reading?"

"Yeah. That makes sense."

Even though absolutely nothing made sense at the moment.

Jeff's P.O.V.

...I hear...

...a voice...

My hazel-brown eyes fluttered open as my vision began making out the dark room and its furniture, adjusting ever so gradually to the blackness. My eyes traced around the room, glancing over to make out the shape of the other bed and its occupant, my roommate and best friend Tony.

I slid my glasses onto my pale face just as Tony began to stir, rustling the sheets ever so slightly until the sound grew louder, an indication that he had waken up, that he had heard me. It doesn't take much for him to wake up, I'll say.

"Jeff, you awake?" he whispered low.

"Yeah," I responded.

"What's going on? What happened? Are you okay?"

"I heard... a voice. Not just imagining it, either. It sounded like a kid who was calling for help far away, something about being trapped in jail. They need my help because of some prophecy or something. I don't know what the prophecy it, but they said I'm a part of it. Kinda scary." As I spoke, I made air quotes when I first said "prophecy". I wasn't sure what this prophecy meant, but I was always willing to help those in trouble. I had a feeling, though. Just a feeling that I didn't know yet, but one I may have come to realize.

"Hey, Jeff," whispered his voice from the opposite side of the room. "You're not thinking about going out, are you? You'll get in serious trouble, like, we're talking big time trouble if you're caught out of bed after curfew-"

"I... well, uh, no. This is important; I can feel the urgency. If I get caught, so be it, but I'm not gonna stand around while these people who are dependent on me are in trouble."

"This doesn't make much sense... but if you're sneaking out, we should at least get you some stuff first for the ahead journey." After stating this, he opened the door, but I still had to grab some stuff first.

"Hold on. I need to grab some clothes," I whispered as a grabbed a duffel bag and started hastily packing extra clothes away. I was wearing a nightgown, so I changed out of my current clothing and changed into a white button down shirt with a bow tie, a green sports jacket, and a pair of green pants. While packing my clothes, I also managed to stuff into the bag a toothbrush, some hair wax, and my personal belongings, which included my tool kit that I used to fix stuff. I would go into how fun fixing stuff is, but that would be boring and I can see that you'd much rather hear the rest of the story.

Once I grabbed my belongings, we exited our room, cautiously so that we wouldn't get caught.

"Jeff, I got an idea. There were some snacks and presents left over from my birthday party in the next room yesterday, most of which I left in there," whispered Tony, slowly opening the door to the next room over.

"Presents?" I wondered, then remembering some of the presents that Tony had received with a not-so-enthusiastic face, but excited me nonetheless. "You mean the ruler and protractor and those things?"

"Ugh, yeah. Why would anyone get me geometry tools for my birthday? What the heck were they thinking?"

"... Tony. I got you those tools," I reminded him.

"Aw, y-you did...? Thanks so much buddy! I'll, uh... keep it forever...?"

"And just a second ago you were talking about how much you didn't want them... ah, forget about it, you don't have to pretend that you're happy about them. It's kinda like a stolen relationship... where there's another guy... and... and you're trying to act happy for him and the g... the g- the g..."

"... the girl."

"AH! YEAH! THAT!" I cried out, causing Tony to clamp his hand over my mouth.

"Listen, I know you're not too fond of girls, but you can't yell, alright? Take a deep breath. Just take a deep breath and relax." I did as Tony instructed, and my heart rate soon decreased.

Okay, so I don't like girls. I mean, I don't hate them, I just... ugh, okay. Sorry, let me reword that. Okay, I don't hate girls, I mean, I want to like girls, but it's just my own thoughts that are stopping me. I don't know, I always think that any girl I meet will always judge me because I'm a nerd. A stereotypical nerd; I have glasses and wear a white button down shirt with a pocket protector and a bowl haircut. And a bow tie. Because bow ties are cool. (Sorry, I thought someone would understand the reference) I know that girls judge me based off of my appearance, and they all wanna go out with the bad boys. Either that or they're lesbian. Either way, I end up never getting the girls. And all the girls that did crush on me were either not my type, not good looking, or I only wanted to be friends with. All the rest of the girls, all of the pretty and cute girls, they all chose the badass, strong, thug like rebels. Not like I would ever be able to hold down a relationship, because of my stupid fath- er, Dr. Andonuts. Well, I guess there's no point in hiding it now... yes, he's unfortunately my super busy, super overprotective, unfair, introverted father. He's been that way from ever since I can remember, and when I see him, I try my best to not acknowledge his presence. But the thing is, if I ever tried to be in a relationship with a girl, he'd shout, "You should be focusing more on training that small little brain of yours instead of being in a stupid little relationship with a girl!" I only assume he was like this because my mother left us when I was little, divorced Andonuts and left without a trace. This made him go... crazy... oh, right, escaping Winters.

Once I had calmed down, I was able to force my legs to move and follow Tony into the room next to ours, taking caution that we could be caught any second. Tony darted quickly into the pitch black room and grabbed things necessary for my journey, coming out a few seconds later with his hands full of stuff which I stuffed into my duffel bag and with that, we headed downstairs to see if we could sneak into Maxwell's workroom to get the key for our lockers. Unfortunately, the door was creaky, and he spotted us right away.

"Hey, you two don't have to be so cautious. It's just me," he spoke in his slight accent. On those words, we stepped into the room with a sigh of relief. Usually, his partner Jeremy would be in the room with him, and if he saw us then he was sure to report us being the tattletale he was. After telling him the unlikely circumstances, he nodded his head in silent agreement.

"If you're leaving, Jeff, you should go grab some stuff from the locker room next door. You know where yours is, but if you see any old lockers, there's bound to be some stuff in there as well. Here, take this key. It's slightly bent though." From his inner coat pocket, he handed me a small, tarnished gray key that was bent at a 160 angle, and some of the teeth were a little bent as well, but I didn't really give it a second thought.

That is, until we entered the locker room and started trying the key on various different lockers. Now, something worth mentioning, all the locks were the same, except for some that were combination locks, for which we didn't bother. But the key didn't fit into any of the locks, even after trying to use a brick to flatten it, but the brick was so old that it ended up crumbling and making a stony mess everywhere. I had the feeling that Maxwell was pulling our leg, and we took the key back to him.

"Heh, the key didn't work right? I knew it wouldn't; I was just messing around with you," he chuckled.

"Maxwell! This isn't a time to be joking around! I have to leave ASAP!"

"Hey, I know. I was just kidding, but while you were busy trying to get the lockers open, I invented this machine called... 'The Machine That Opens Doors, Especially When You Have A Bad Key'. I tried making an acronym for it, but 'TMTODEWYHABK' doesn't exactly roll right off the tongue. So I'm gonna call it the 'Bad Key Machine' for short." With that, he handed over a small metal box with a little rod sticking out the side. "The way it works is, it has a sensor for when you put that metal rod on the side into a keyhole. Then it takes an x-ray of the keyhole and more little rods come out, turning the lock and opening whatever you need to open. And it's super quick as well. That's the least I can do for you; after all, you always fix my stuff. You have a natural talent for that. Well, you are Dr. Andonuts's so-"

"OKAY! We'll... uh... we'll be taking our leave now. Thanks. Bye." I hurried out the door and returned to the locker room, not allowing Maxwell to say what he was about to.

The Bad Key Machine worked like a charm. As soon as the thing detected the keyhole, the door was open just like that. Maxwell wasn't kidding about the machine being fast. It all happened so quickly that I didn't even realize it when it happened. When I opened the locker to grab some stuff, I felt the urge to try the machine again on a different locker. Which I did to not one, but all of the lockers. That machine is so unbelievably satisfying to use, you wouldn't know until you used it. Anyway, I found a few useful things in the lockers, like a hat that looked like Sherlock Holmes's, a popgun with some cork ammunition lying around, maybe 19 or something corks that I could use before rendering the popgun useless, but luckily I found 10 more corks in other lockers and on the floor. That made it an unsatisfying number of 29, but I figured that the popgun was probably only used once, and that was why there 29 instead of 30. I was wondering about what I'd do after I rendered the popgun useless, but luckily my issue was solved when I found a broken air gun in another locker that I could fix later on. After that, I was set. Well, almost; I remembered that I lived in Winters, where it was currently winter as a matter of fact, and I would freeze to death if all I went out in was a thin button down shirt and a pair of dress pants, equally as thin. To get around this problem, I grabbed my winter coat from my own locker with a pair of winter gloves and a pair of thermal underwear, which I changed into in the bathroom that was connected to the locker room.

With everything all set, I was ready to head out. Tony and I headed out of the dormitory building and headed down the pathway to the gate. It was really creaky and made a lot of noise when you opened it, which would wake up the headmaster. Not to mention that the keyhole was on the other side of the gate and we couldn't open the gate from the side we were standing on, but luckily Tony had an idea. He crouched down against the tall brick wall isolating the dorm from the outside world as a signal for me to climb up on his back and hop over the fence.

"It's just you from here on, dude. Well, I wish you luck out there. Call me when you get a chance. There's a drugstore a few kilometers down the road, so you can call me when you get there. Oomph-" As he was speaking, he motioned for me to climb on his back and jump over the fence. "Apparently we were going to the lake today, but I think the lake is frozen. Maybe you can walk across the lake that way, but be careful."

"I will, thanks dude." Duffel bag in hand, I began to head south.


End file.
